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

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or other evidences that the mounds were built up gradually by people who lived
upon them year after year and century after century. The main mass of the
mounds consists of mud, which, toward the edges, seems always to have been
made into sun-dried bricks which were laid in courses. Here and there these
somewhat unstable bricks are strengthened by a layer, or a little group, of burnt
bricks, or even by a few large pieces of heavy red pottery. Toward the center
of the mounds, and to a less extent in other places, the regularly laid bricks give
place to more carelessly laid crude clay, mixed more or less with smaller potsherds.
Apparently the idea was that the outer walls and any other portions that required
extra strength should be built of sun-dried bricks, strengthened with burnt bricks
and large potsherds, while the interior, wherever strength was not required, was
filled with looser mud until a smooth-topped platform was obtained. Possibly
the mounds were built partially and then inhabited for a time before they were
built to their full height. No single mound has been so completely examined
that we can say with certainty just how it was built, but the piecing together of
the fragmentary evidence from many mounds makes it probable that the above
conclusion is correct. Moreover, this seems to be the way in which the mounds
and platforms of the citadel at Ghiaur Kala were constructed, and there is good
reason for thinking that the builders of that city were the same people as the
builders of the kurgans. Whether this style of architecture was indigenous we
do not yet know. It is closely similar to that of many of the ancient mounds of
Babylonia on the one hand, and to that of the old Buddhist "stupas" and lama-
series of Chinese Turkestan, on the other.

PURPOSES OF THE KURGANS.

At first sight the thought presents itself that these platforms were erected
for purposes of defense, and probably such was in part the case. The strong
outer walls surrounding Guibekli, Ersar, and Kuzi Tepe could hardly be for any
other purpose. The absence of massive walls in the majority of cases, however,
makes it probable that defense can not have been the chief or only purpose.
Gechekran Tepe, better than any other, shows the normal condition of one of
the recent kurgans. Although erosion has not yet proceeded far, all trace of
houses has been removed. The surface of the top is almost smooth, except that
from every side there is a gentle slope inward to a slight depression, where water
stands during rain. If a flat-topped kurgan were capped with ordinary mud-
walled houses, standing around the edges of the top and facing toward an inner
inclosed courtyard, the weathering action of rain and wind would, in course of
time, wear away the walls and partly fill the courtyard, producing a surface like
that of Gechekran Tepe.

It seems probable that the kurgans were, in the main, erected as sites for
the dwellings of princes and their retinues. Such a course would have eminent
advantages; it would render the occupants relatively free from hostile attack, and
would isolate them from the common crowd of laboring humanity; and it would
provide the coolest possible summer dwelling-place. During the rainless period