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0152	Innermost Asia : vol.2
極奥アジア : vol.2

were still intact in ix. 2 and found also in other tombs. They comprised grapes and fruit (i. 4 ;
iii. 1, 2 ; ix. 2), grain (iii. 2 ; ix. 2), meat (ix. 2), as well as bread and pastry (iii. 1, 2, 4 ; ix. 2). The
elaborate and plentiful specimens of fancy pastry which survived in iii. 1 deserve special mention.
Models of
furniture ;
figures of
attendants,
mounts, &c. But the care for the dead was not restricted solely to his needs in the matter of clothes and
food. He was to be provided also with what he might have enjoyed in life in the matter of accom-
modation, household comforts, attendance, and the like. This pious intention accounts for the
remains found of wooden models of buildings (i. 7 ; ii. 2 ; iii. 4), furniture (vi. 4), carts (ii. 1, 2 ;
vi. 4 ; ix. 2), and the like. Miniature flags, like those from ii. 1 and Ast. 08 (Pl. XCIII), may
have been meant to serve him for pious offerings, and painted wooden pegs, like ii. 1. 023 (Pl. CIV),
for the performance of rites. To the desire of assuring to the dead an adequate staff of servants,
a cortège such as he might have liked to have around him on great occasions, and a well-filled
stable, &c., we owe the large and archaeologically instructive series of figurines in clay, wood, and
also in mere dough which many among the Astāna tombs have yielded up. Among them we have
figures of women and men (i. 8 ; ii. 1, 2 ; iii. 2, 4 ; vi. 1, 2, 4 ; vii. 2 ; viii. 1 ; x. 1), including
some mounted ; of horses with saddles, of camels and cattle (i. 7 ; ii. 2 ; vii. 2). It is
scarcely necessary to refer here to the fact that we have evidence from a very early period of Chinese
history of the practice of depositing in the graves cheap substitutes in the place of objects of value,
and images in the place of the living beings formerly immolated.²² The small wooden figures of
ducks found in i. 1–3, ix. 2 appear to have been placed there as emblems of felicity. Finally we
recognize in the clay images of composite monsters from i. 7 ; iii. 2 ; vii. 2 ; x. 1 representations
of the mythical creatures (t'u-kuei) to whom pious imagination in China from an early age appears
to have entrusted the protection of the tomb.²³

Section V.—RELICS OF TEXTILE ART FROM THE TOMBS OF ASTĀNA

Textile
remains as
evidence of
trade
intercourse. I have referred briefly, in the course of the above description, to the numerous relics of ancient
fabrics found in the tombs examined near Astāna. A variety of circumstances invest them with
considerable interest for the archaeologist and the student of textile art, and this makes it desirable
to attempt here a succinct review of the various techniques and decorative designs represented
among them. The special interest claimed by the silk stuffs from Astāna is due in the first place
to the fact that the date of their use and deposit is fixed with sufficient accuracy by inscriptional
and other evidence as falling within the seventh and early eighth centuries of our era. This is the very
period when the renewed expansion of Chinese political control into Eastern Turkestan, and even
beyond it, once more enabled trade to proceed uninterruptedly between China and Central Asia
and opened the way for that exchange of varied cultural influences both from the East and West
which was its necessary accompaniment. Almost equal importance may be claimed for the circum-
stance that these silk textiles were recovered from cemeteries near the old capital of Turfān. This
territory was then as now the meeting-place of those routes along the T'ien-shan by which most
of China's overland trade and other relations with inner and Western Asia were conducted, and the
important part that the silk trade played in these from the outset is well known.
Comparison
with textiles
from Lou-
lan and
Ch'ien-fo-
tung. It is easy to recognize the value of the contribution to the history of textile art afforded by these
discoveries at Astāna owing to the fact that they are chronologically intermediate between the
abundant textile remains, mainly from later T'ang times, recovered by me at the 'Thousand
Buddhas' of Tun-huang and those far more ancient relics brought to light in the grave-pits of
Lou-lan. Comparison of the silk remains from Astāna with those from the other two sites helps

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