National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

Immediately after my arrival at L.K. I had dispatched Afrāz-gul with a couple of camels and Date
men to reconnoitre the smaller fort L.L. visible from the site and to search for more ruins north- indicated
westwards, where the direction of the ancient river-bed had led me to surmise their existence. The for ruined
information he brought back on the morning of February 7th, on his return from his successful fort L.K.
reconnaissance, was very encouraging, and caused me to start at once for the fresh site reported.
Before, however, I describe the result of this further exploration, it will be convenient to record
here briefly the conclusions that I was able to draw from the observations and finds at L.K. Though
the latter did not include any written remains, yet their general character and the evidence of the
coins left no doubt that the ruined fort dated back approximately to the same period as the Lou-lan
station L.A., which we know to have been occupied in the third century A. D. and abandoned soon
after. Whether the fort L.K. was built at the same time as L.A. or earlier it seems impossible to
determine. But that its occupation could not have extended much beyond the first thirty years of
the fourth century, at which period we know that traffic by the ancient Chinese route through
the north of the Lop Desert and past the Lou-lan station ceased,¹⁸ becomes highly probable on
consideration of certain topographical facts.

Inspection of map sheets Nos. 29, 30 shows that the ruined fort lies exactly on a straight line Topo-
connecting the Lou-lan station L.A. with the site of Mirān. I believe that I have proved in Serindia graphical
that the latter corresponds to the town of Yü-ni, which the annals of the former Han dynasty indications.
know as the chief place of the Lop territory and which Li Tao-yüan's commentary on the Shui
ching, composed at the beginning of the sixth century A. D. but based on earlier materials, speaks
of as 'the old eastern town' of the same territory.¹⁹ The latter text also shows that the terminal
lake in which the Tārīm then lost itself north of Yü-ni must have occupied approximately the same
position as the present Kara-koshun marshes.²⁰

Hence we may assume that the route between the Lou-lan station on the ancient Chinese 'road Position of
of the centre' and Yü-ni, the capital of Lop in Han times, is likely to have followed closely the L.K. rela-
straight line which connects the site of L.A. with that of Mirān and actually passes the ruined tive to L.A.
fort of L.K. The waterless wind-eroded desert which now separates the sites of L.A. and L.K. and Mirān.
is shown by our surveys to have then been a deltaic area reached by southern branches of the
Kuruk-daryā and therefore practicable throughout for traffic. It thus becomes very probable
that the ruined fort L.K., the distance of which from L.A., about 30 miles, is but a little less than
a third of the whole length of the straight line between this important station and Mirān, was
intended to guard the direct route connecting the two places and to facilitate traffic along it. The
choice of this particular point on the route as the site of the fort is fully accounted for by the vicinity
of the agricultural settlement, the remains of which I was able to trace at the site L.M. and which
will be described in the next section.

SECTION II.—LIST OF OBJECTS FOUND NEAR OR EXCAVATED AT
FORT L.K.

MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTS BROUGHT BY TOKHTA ĀKHŪN FROM SITE OF L.K.

L.K. 01. Bronze brooch setting, elliptical, with raised small bronze buckle; width ¾″. 07-08. Convex stud-
rim; jewel missing. Four small holes drilled in back plate. heads, diam. ½″ and ⅜″. 09. Tongue of small buckle with
Much corroded with rough patina. 1½″×1″. Pl. XXIII. hole through flattened end for hinge-pin; length ⅝″. 010.
L.K. 02-5. Four frs. of bronze plate. Rough patch Fr. of bronze plate, corroded. Gr. M. ½″. 011. Small convex
of silver fused on to 02; heavy patina on all. Gr. M. ½″; stud-head with stump of iron shank; diam. ½″ (nearly).
smallest 1″. Pl. XXIV.
L.K. 06-11. Misc. bronze frs. 06. Part of loop of L.K. 012. Glass bead, blue green, translucent, flattened
spheroid. Diam. ⁷⁄₁₆″.