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

4:1. Bunch of coarse black-brown human
hair.

4:2. Several very frayed fragm. of fine red
woollen fabric in tabby weave.

4:3. Pieces of silk, packed together, origin-
ally yellow. Blood-stained?

4:4. Two fragm. of cotton fabric, original-
ly white, discoloured to fawn, each
sewn together with a ribbon of silk, also discol-
oured. Both cotton and silk in plain weave. 16.7×
10.6 and 7.2×1.9 cm.

4:5. Piece of silk, originally yellow, now
reddish.


K. DISCUSSION ON THE MINOR CEMETERIES.

These three minor burial places along The Small River — where future explor-
ations will certainly reveal still more — differ sharply from Cemetery 5.
There are several types of coffins, but none similar to those in No. 5. The minor
places lack impressive wooden monuments, and the whole grave deposit, both
shrouds and accessories, are distinctly unlike what was met with at No. 5. Very
little is of local make, all the silk and cotton fabrics, for instance, being importa-
tions from China and India respectively. For some of the silks of which the collar
7. A:6 is composed we have to assume a Bactrian or Iranian origin.
It is not impossible that at least some of those buried in this way were real
Indians. But whether Indians or not, they were no doubt of a social standing far
above that of the autochthons buried in Cemetery 5. This distinction in social status
does not exclude a chronological difference.
Like much else of the Lop-nor material the dating of these graves is attended with
considerable difficulty. The close resemblance to some of Stein's Chinese graves
nearer to the Lou-lan station makes it highly probable that the same chronological
limits are valid, i. e. approx. 100 B. C. and approx. 330 A. D.
The Small River with its narrow channel, which nevertheless furnished the
whole water supply for those living in this part of the Lop desert, must be very sen-
sitive to fluctuations in the water amount of its mother river, Qum-darya. It is not
out of the question that The Small River dried up completely before Qum-darya
became quite dry, and if so the region around The Small River became un-
inhabitable earlier than approx. 330 A. D.
The map Fig. 18 gives an idea of the general situation of the burial places in
the region of The Small River. None of them is placed immediately next to the
river-bed but some distance away from it. Cemetery 5 lies isolated, which stresses
its difference from the small cemeteries.
If the burial sites were thus placed some way off from the river the dwellings of
the living must have been situated near the water. But of these no structural
remains were found.

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