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0480	Innermost Asia : vol.1
極奥アジア : vol.1

and that the Limes extended along a line farther south. So I proceeded for about two miles to
the south-south-east in the direction of a slight eminence which looked as if it might mark a ruined
post. But when we reached it after crossing ground badly cut up by wind-erosion, it proved to
be a dead tamarisk-cone, close to the dry river-bed. Of the Limes line no trace could be seen
anywhere in this neighbourhood.¹³

Double Convinced by this reconnaissance that the border line must have had its continuation farther
agger near north, I returned in that direction and at a point about a mile and a half to the east-south-east
T. xxxvii.h. of T. xxxvii. f came upon the Limes agger, constructed of layers of brushwood and earth exactly
as between T. xxxvii. a–e. But strangely enough there were two lines of it, separated by about
90 yards of wind-eroded ground and here nearly parallel to each other. Half a mile to the south-
east the two lines united at T. xxxvii. h, a tower completely decayed into a shapeless mound,
but clearly marked as a watch-post by the semicircle which the agger formed round it, and by
abundant pottery debris. Further examination showed that the more southerly of the two
lines of agger could be clearly traced to a point about half a mile east of T. xxxvii. f, where it
struck the big gravel dike at a blunt angle. The northern one joined on to the dike where it
ended about a mile to the east-south-east of this point and thus linked the dike to the agger at
T. xxxvii. h.

Change in In the absence of definite archaeological evidence, we must resort to conjecture to account
alignment for the strange duplication of this short section of the Limes line. After close consideration of
suggested. the ground the following explanation commended itself to me. It seems likely that the dike,
whatever its origin was, already existed before Wu-ti's Limes was pushed forward to Tun-huang
and beyond. At first the new line, as marked by the southern agger, was made to join this dike
near T. xxxvii. f, which, by reason of its natural clay terrace, offered a convenient position for a
watch-station. Some time later it was noticed by those responsible for guarding this portion of
the Limes that the eastern segment of the dike, not having been utilized in the alignment of the
border wall, effectively masked the ground in front of the newly built agger and thus made the
guarding of the latter more difficult. In order to rectify the mistake made in the first alignment,
this eastern segment of the dike, which before had been left, as it were, hanging in the air, was
accordingly joined up with the Limes line at T. xxxvii. h. The line between this post and
T. xxxvii. f was thereby pushed a little farther north than before.

Inferior Whether the explanation here offered or another is the right one, it seems difficult not to
construc- recognize in this duplication of the agger one more sign of the hasty and careless construction which
tion of appears to have prevailed along the Limes on either side of An-hsi. This inferior construction
of An-hsi. manifests itself very strikingly in the substitution of a mere agger of earth and loosely laid brushwood
for the solid wall carefully built with regular fascines which we found all along the Tun-huang
Limes as far east as T. xxxv. To the same cause, even more perhaps than to less arid conditions
of climate, may be attributed the complete decay of almost all the watch-towers between An-hsi
and the Limes section explored in 1907 to the north-east of Tun-huang. In the absence of docu-
mentary evidence, it would serve no useful purpose, after the lapse of two thousand years, to con-
jecture the reason of this inferiority of construction. Circumstances of a purely accidental character
may have had as much to do with it as considerations of a topographical or quasi-strategic
nature.

国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

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国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト 『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

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国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ