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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

century did the Chinese begin to settle Charchan once more, as a penal station. Its
growing importance as an agricultural settlement has been stated by Stein, and on
my visit in 1928 I found that the oasis had improved still further.

On his fourth expedition, 1883—85, Prjevalsky visited Charchan. As the in-
formation he obtained regarding the Kohna-shahr is very important and has been
overlooked by Stein I herewith render it in English from Hedin's Swedish trans-
lation of Prjevalsky's narrative (pp. 396 f).
"At Charchan there are, in the middle of the desert and partly covered by
mounds of loess and sand, traces of an old culture — ruins of towers, houses and old
canals. According to local tradition two cities existed here at different epochs.
Among the remains of these the natives now and again undertake diggings, espe-
cially after the storms when the sand is removed to a considerable depth. Here they
find coins of copper and gold, silver bars, gold ornaments, jewellery, iron objects
and copper vessels, and, oddly enough, sherds of glass — all in the older city. From
the younger city they obtain burnt bricks. They also excavate tombs containing
wooden coffins. In these the corpses are very well preserved, thanks to the extreme
dryness of the ground and the air. The men are of very high stature and have long
hair; the women have one or two queues. Once a tomb was discovered with twelve
male corpses in a sitting position. Another time a young girl was discovered in her
coffin. Her eyes were covered with leaves of gold, and her head was wound round
with a gold ribbon from chin to crown. She had been dressed in a long garment,
now totally decayed, but on the breast were some thin stars of gold; her feet were
bare. The natives of Charchan told us that even the wooden coffins in some instances
were so well preserved that the wood could be used for making various small articles.
Together with human corpses one also found bones of horses and sheep in the tombs."
Prjevalsky apparently made no excavations or collections of antiquities, he only
gathered information. In the statements of the natives the riches found in the tombs
have probably been exaggerated — this is usually the case when ignorant people
describe archaeological finds. Another typical detail is the mention of the very high
stature of the corpses: the size of a corpse or skeleton is always magnified when
described. Several points are very suggestive and ring true: the good preservation
of the corpses, the occurrence of glass and so on. It is also interesting to note that
the existing ruins have been extensively used by the natives as "brick mines".
Grenard's description is also interesting and worth quoting (Grenard Vol. 3, p.
146). He visited Charchan 1893.
"A Tchertchen à l'ouest de l'oasis et légèrement au sud de la route de Kéria, des
maisons en ruines sont ensevelies sous le sable; les toits ont disparu, mais les murs
sont encore assez bien conservés. Ils sont faits de briques cuites, grosses et solides.
Les anciens du village disent qu'on y a trouvé aux premiers temps de la colonisation
du nouveau Tchertchen, c'est-à-dire début de ce siècle, des corps d'hommes vêtus de

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