150 TO RtJDBAR AND JIRUFT [Chap. V
to the foot of the mound. Whether the rampart was constructed with earth, stamped clay, or possibly with sun-dried bricks could not be determined. Including pottery-strewn ground stretching eastwards, the total length of the site from east to west measures some 620 yards. Here, too, thick shôr covers the surface of the mound and makes it difficult to recognize smaller debris. With the exception of one painted potsherd, decorated in black on a grey body, the pottery found was all plain ware, of red, pink or buff body, often showing a whitish or greenish-grey slip. One piece, Kuns. 34, of rich terra-cotta colour, well burnished outside, is part of a bowl or cup, and looks early. Fragments of alabaster cups and a couple of worked flints pointed to occupation having started in prehistoric times. Some bronze fragments, and a small piece of lapis lazuli, were also picked up. It deserves to be noted in this connexion that at neither of the Kunâr-sandal mounds was a single piece of glazed pottery found. On the much broken top of the mound, where the pottery was of the same kind as on the slopes, signs of a great conflagration could be seen, the ground being reddened to a depth of 5 or 6 feet.
From Kunâr-sandal a ride of 5 miles to the north-west brought me across a succession of marshy beds, said to be impassable after rain floods, to the line of village lands which skirt the foot of a long low hill chain. On an outlying ridge, above the hamlet of Karimâbâd, there stands a small but conspicuous mound known as Tump-i-Qal`a-kûchak. It rises with steep slopes to a height of fully 52 feet, and on its top, which is almost flat, measures 70 yards from east to west and about 65 yards across. What pottery could be found was all plain ware, of red, light buff, or grey colour. One red fragment was burnished on the inside. As neither glazed nor painted ware could be found, occupation during early historical times suggested itself.
The route onwards lay at some distance from the foot of the low hill-crest with which the glacis of the Khorgatu chain breaks off above the Jiruft trough. A series of small villages ensconced among date-palm groves and orchards was passed for some 8 miles. Together with the wide belt of fine wheat fields stretching down towards the river it made an attractive rural landscape, effectively framed by the high mountains which encircle the Jiruft trough on the north and west. Then, beyond the village of Zangiân, the route passed over a stony plateau furrowed by flood-beds, along which were to be seen camps of the nomadic Afshâr tribe accustomed to visit Jiruft for winter grazing. From the top of the plateau we obtained a distant view over the wide head of the basin where the Halil Rûd valley descending from the north-west meets the Rûd-i-shôr on a great stony peneplain. Finally we dropped down to the date groves and orchards of the small village of Hûkird. There our camp had been
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