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

of the two antelopes are considerably coarser than the fleece of all common deer
animals (family Cervidæ). It was also established that the big hairs of the sample
are so-called "kemps" or "dead hairs" from sheep. But the presence of the "kemps"
tells us that the wool must have been taken from an adult sheep and can not belong
to the first and finest clip of the "lambs' wool" from animals of eight or ten months
old.
Hence it is here assumed that the wool had been imported.


NO 34: 70. WHITE POWDER IN A SMALL LEATHER-BAG WRAPPED
IN WOOL-HAIRS.

The powder is in no wise fatty, but it can not be mixed with water — it does not
get wet. On the other hand, it takes ether very readily, but nothing is extracted by
this solvent. In reality there is no organic substance in the powder. If heated, the
mass blackens only for a moment, giving off a distinct smell of burnt leather, then
it assumes a very characteristic brown-yellow colour, as does the common painting-
colour, white lead. Following this indication it was easy to show that the powder
could be dissolved in nitric acid, with the exception of a considerable part of it
which proved to be sand (probably from the desert), and another part which could
be dissolved in strong hydrochloric acid and which proved to be antimonious
oxide. Sulphur is not present.
When the lead nitrate was formed, carbon dioxide was set free. Then the nitrate
compound was precipitated by sulphuric acid and determined as lead sulphate in
the ordinary way. The powder possesses a high degree of dispersion and adheres
strongly to rough surfaces. As the use of white lead as toilet powder was common
in the civilised world as early as the 4th century B. C. we are justified in assuming
that the find may have been once used for such a purpose.
Concerning the wool round the small powder-bag it may be added that among the
hairs of the ordinary sheep wool I was surprised to find some bigger hairs showing
a striking resemblance to the hairs of a gazelle, Gasella gutturosa of Kansu.


NO 36: 5. FRAGMENT OF BASKET.

The fragment shows a simple wickerwork, i. e. a weaving in which the warp is
rigid and the weft flexible.
The rigid warp here consists of pretty round (diam. 1.5—1.8 mm.) and straight
strands of a dicotyledonous stem. All small twigs have been carefully removed, but
in some places the bark is not peeled off altogether.
The flexible weft forms a plain weaving over single warps. The surface is
smooth. Near the upper rim three triplets of neighbouring weft-strands are drawn

237