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

CHAPTER XII.—A RECONNAISSANCE OF THE KURGANS OF THE
MERV OASIS.

As one looks northward from the great citadel of Ghiaur Kala in the center
of the ruins of ancient Merv, the monotonous expanse of the flat sunny plain is
broken here and there in the shimmering distance by pale gray mounds, or kurgans,
of large dimensions. For a space of fifty miles from north to south and of forty
from east to west they form one of the most marked features of the otherwise
level landscape. A brief reconnaissance among them indicates that the old cities
of Merv were surrounded by a dense suburban and presumably agricultural popu-
lation which clustered around the kurgans. Fruitful fields and teeming villages
appear to have been supported by the Murg-ab river, not only in the districts now
under cultivation, but also in regions at present waterless. The distribution of
the kurgans suggests that their future study will not only throw much light upon
the civilization of the ancient people of Transcaspia, but will be of especial service
in elucidating the physical changes, climatic or otherwise, which are sometimes
thought to have been the cause of the decay of the ancient empires of the arid
regions of Asia.

Outside the cities of the ancient Merv Oasis the relics of the former inhabitants
are of two distinct types, characteristic of two quite different periods. The more
recent ruins, which are fairly well preserved, are built almost entirely of sun-dried
mud bricks, and consist of old houses and castles, rectangular forts with very thick
walls, round towers to protect the fields and villages, and old canals guarded by
mile after mile of walls flanked with square towers. The date at which they were
built is in many cases historically known, and there is good reason for believing that
they all belong to the latter half of the Mohammedan era. With these more recent
ruins we are not now concerned, although a study of their extent and distribution
would probably lead to significant results as to the water-supply of the Middle Ages.

The older ruins are of a distinctly different type. Chief among them are
numerous flat-topped kurgans, or tepes* as the Turkomans call them, which are
so abundant that in eight days the writer was able to visit and examine 28, and
might have made the number larger if it had not seemed advisable to visit those
lying on the extreme outskirts of the oasis. The distribution of most of those
investigated and of a few others is shown on the accompanying revised copy of the
Russian 5-verst map (fig. 430), where it will be seen that they are most abundant
in the region directly north of Bairam Ali and the various ruined cities of ancient
Merv. In addition to the kurgans, there are a number of large rectangular forts,
the thick and lofty mud walls of which have been reduced either to mere rows of
hillocks, as at Kirk Tepe, or to rounded ridges, as at Yasi Tepe. Houses of the

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