Innermost Asia : vol.2 / 124 ページ（カラー画像）

0124	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

'Spectacles' the hands of plunderers. They lay with the heads pointing to the south, one of the bodies being small
of dead in and probably that of a woman. The fabrics which clothed them, plain cotton and snuff-coloured
Ast. i. 3. silk, had rotted away into shreds. But the mask-like covers of silk placed over the faces had
survived better and revealed, when removed, interesting details in connexion with the last toilette
of the dead. In the case of the larger body, α, obviously male, which lay eastward of the other
and nearer to the entrance, the face-cover contained in the middle a piece of figured silk showing
a very fine design of distinctly ' Sasanian ' style, Ast. i. 3a. 01 (Pl. LXXIX). Of the frill, in plain
blue silk, i. 3. a. 02, only small fragments were recovered. Below this cover was a pair of 'spectacles',
placed over the eyes, i. 3. a. 04, consisting of a thin plate of silver, formed into two lotus petal-shaped
pieces which are joined end to end. The slightly embossed centre of each is punched with a number
of small holes and the flattened edges drilled for sewing on to the silk with which the surfaces were
covered. The exact object intended to be served by these ' spectacles ', of which further examples
were recovered on other bodies, still remains to be ascertained.

Byzantine But the most curious and instructive discovery here made was the following. Mashik, our
gold coin special cemetery assistant, whom long practice in searching the dead had relieved of all scruples, by
in mouth breaking the jawbones of the skull recovered from the mouth cavity a thin gold coin which I was
of dead. able at once to recognize as Byzantine (Pl. CXX). It has since been identified by Mr. R. B.
Whitehead as an approximately contemporaneous imitation of a gold coin of the Emperor
Justinian I (A. D. 527–65).³ This at once supplied a terminus a quo for this particular group of
tombs. The chronological evidence was confirmed by finds in two more tombs of the same group,
Ast. i. 5 and i. 6, of thin gold pieces (Pl. CXX), similarly showing the type of Justinian I's gold
coinage but struck only on the obverse. Mashik claimed the distinction of having been the first
to learn by experience to look for coins of gold or silver placed in the mouths of the dead, though
his search was but rarely rewarded. That earlier pillagers had not made the same discovery was
proved by the fact that in none of the tombs which we explored, and which Mashik stated that he
had not himself touched, had the skulls suffered the rude operation by which he was wont to ascertain
whether they contained a coin.

Custom of The fact that out of the four coins actually found by us in the mouths of Astāna corpses three
providing are Byzantine gold pieces or imitations of such pieces (Ast. i. 3. 023 ; 5. 08 ; 6. 03) and one a
obolus for Sasanian silver coin (Ast. v. 2. 02) might naturally predispose us to connect this practice with the
dead. ancient Greek custom of placing a coin between the lips of the dead as the fare due to Charon, the
ferryman of Hades. But the reference with which M. Chavannes kindly supplied me in 1916
to a Buddhist story in the Chinese Tripiṭaka suggests that the custom was not unknown in the
Far East also.⁴ It must further be borne in mind that as China had never had a gold or silver
coinage, those who at Turfān wished to provide their dead with an adequate obolus for the journey
to the world beyond would necessarily have to use a coin of Western origin for their pious purpose,
if they wished it to be of precious metal. I must leave it to others, with more ample literary resources
than I can command at present, to trace such other links as may exist between the practice here
discovered and the burial customs of the East or West. It will be sufficient here to remark that all
the three gold coins above mentioned were recovered from bodies in one and the same group of
tombs, the approximate period of which, as we shall see presently, is determined by inscriptional
records.

Finds on The second smaller body, b, in all probability female, had evidently been laid out in much the
body same manner as the first. It was found near the back wall of the tomb on a piece of much-decayed
Ast. i. 3. b, matting. Here, too, the face had a cover made of an originally circular piece of polychrome figured

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