国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

In the introduction to the section dealing with the ancient remains along The
Small River I have referred to the beginning of Dr. Hedin's journey in native
canoes from Könche along the Könche-darya. He continued along the whole
course of the new river Qum-darya. The beginning of May 1934 saw him and his
party in the jagged delta of Qum-darya, where he discovered and examined some
ancient graves containing articles of considerable importance to the student of
archaeology and ethnology. The outer setting and the events of these excavations
are described in Dr. Hedin's personal narrative "Den vandrande sjön" pp. 102—
117, (German edition "Der wandernde See" pp. 90—103.).

A. MASS-GRAVE 1 (NO. 34).

On May 6th, 1934, Sven Hedin's men found a tomb on a mighty mesa or eroded
ridge of clay in the middle of the delta near its northern edge. The mesa was 25
m. high, the tomb being situated 17.5 m. above water level. It was found to be a
collective grave consisting of a rather shallow rectangular pit located NE—SW as
were also the extension of the mesa, with roofing of wooden boards, and a couple
of standing poles marking its edge.

Fifteen human skulls and some other human bones were lying in a jumble with
rags of various fabrics, wooden objects of many kinds, and so forth. There were
no complete skeletons or mummies. Judging from the number of skulls the extant
bones were only about one fifth of what they ought to have been.

The pit did not contain any coffins. What Hedin calls a much decayed canoe
found in the pit is, however, probably the remains of a coffin.

Three of the skulls and the lower jaw of a fourth were brought away; they have
been handed over to Prof. Gaston Backman for examination, to whose forth-
coming report I refer.

All the funeral deposit, save some badly decayed or fragmentary bowls, was
taken away. Cf. Pl. XIII a.

Here follows a brief survey of the objects; for a more detailed description I refer
to the list on pp. 128 et seq.

Vessels.

The two pottery jars Pl. 21: 2—3 are of typical Han shape, and the light grey
ware is also typical of the Han period. The higher one very much resembles a speci-
men from Charchan, Pl. 35: 3.

The wooden vessels are in the majority. Of the cups or dippers shown in Pl. 19: 4
—6 there are seven pieces counting the fragments. They have a plain ring-handle.

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