Innermost Asia : vol.1 / Page 326 (Color Image)

0326	Innermost Asia : vol.1

about 70 square feet in that of iii. In addition to the pits i–vii, which were cleared on February
15th immediately after my arrival at L.C., a fresh careful search on the return march two days
later revealed three more grave-pits, viii–x. Besides these a few shallow excavations were then
traced towards the north-east extremity of the Mesa top. They contained nothing but drift-sand
and had apparently never been used.

Protection
secured
from wind-
erosion. The only covering of those grave-pits which retained their sepulchral contents, just as they
had been thrown in on re-burial, consisted of layers of reed-straw, from 1 to 1½ feet in thickness.
This material, apparently so frail, had perfectly sufficed to keep off wind-erosion, a fact that I had
frequently observed in connexion with ancient remains on desert ground in the Tārim and Su-lo-ho
basins.⁵ The rows of tamarisk sticks which, placed at irregular intervals, roughly lined the edges
of the pits and rose a few inches above them, may have been partly intended to secure these layers
of reeds. That no superstructures had ever existed over these places of re-burial may be concluded
with certainty from the uniform flatness of the Mesa top, as Fig. 158 shows it. This clearly proves
that erosion cannot have been at work here to any great extent since the re-burials took place, and
in a place so completely safe from moisture of any sort wind-erosion alone could have attacked and
destroyed structural remains.

Custom of
collecting
burial
remains. The character of the mixed remains in the pits of L.C. left no doubt about their having been
gathered from earlier graves, threatened with destruction or already exposed. It appears equally
certain that this had been done in obedience to a pious custom that is still widely prevalent among
the Chinese. Not having access to evidence in Chinese texts I may content myself with supporting
this explanation by a reference to the kind of charnel-houses I know to have been erected for the
identical purpose at the Chinese cemeteries of Kāshgar, Yārkand, and Khotan after the reconquest
of the New Dominion. As regards the customs observed in the original burials, conclusive archaeo-
logical evidence has fortunately become available through my subsequent explorations in the
Lou-lan area and in closely adjoining tracts.

Evidence of
burials at
L.H. and
Ying-p'an. At the ancient burial-places of L.H., which must be contemporary with the occupation of
Lou-lan, I found coffins containing bodies wrapped up tightly with rags of worn clothing, precisely
after the fashion suggested by the finds of L.C.⁶ There, too, objects of personal use, articles serving
for sepulchral offerings, &c., exactly corresponding in character to those recovered from the
grave-pits of L.C., were found deposited by the side of the dead. Equally instructive was it to
note there that the coffins, in groups of three or more, had been placed on raised ground safe from
moisture, and the shallow pits containing them roofed over after the fashion which must have been
common in ordinary houses of the local type.⁷ Where these habitations of the dead had been reached
by erosion, the coffins and their contents showed exactly the same stage of decay that had overtaken
the remains found at L.C. before they were collected and deposited in the common pits. At the
Ying-p'an site on the uppermost course of the Kuruk-daryā, I explored in March, 1915, some
Chinese graves which may be ascribed approximately to the same period as those of Lou-lan.⁸

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

Citation Information

OCR Text

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