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

THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE ANCIENT POPULATION OF THE MERV OASIS.

In examining the ruins of the Merv Oasis one of the most striking features
is the apparent density and wide distribution of the population in the past as
compared with the present. Wherever villages exist to-day there are traces of
ancient occupation; but, more than this, there are also large areas which must
once have been densely peopled, although now they are deserted. From Gechekran
and Kurtli Tepes, out northward past the two Kishmans to Ak Bai and Takir
Bai in the midst of the sand, or westward beyond Luchuk Tepe, and northwestward
past Yaz and Guibekli Tepes to Uch Tepe with its three mounds in the sand, and
thence westward to Arvali Tepe, there is to-day no sign of habitation. Yet this
whole region must for the most part have been thickly populated at one time,
as is evident not only from the mounds, but also from the great amount of pottery
that covers the ground. For instance, among the low sand-dunes between the
two Kishmans, or between Uch and Guibekli Tepes and on over the deserted
clay plains to Airakli and Munon Tepes lie great tracts where the ground is covered
with potsherds far more thickly than in any of the modern villages. Such, too,
is the case west of Uch Tepe for 2 or 3 miles, till the sand-dunes begin, and east
of Kara Tepe, where the main distributary of the Murg-ab flows out to lose itself
in the desert. North of Yelotan, according to the Russian superintendent of the
dam at that place, ruins are abundant for a distance of 15 or 20 miles, while west
of the Murg-ab they extend nearly half as far.

In all these places and many others sand is encroaching steadily over what
were once cultivated fields. Nowhere, so far as has been noticed, is land being
recovered from the sand, although the opposite process is taking place rapidly.
Year by year the outposts of humanity are being drawn inward toward the centers
of Merv and Bairam Ali, and the Turkomans who formerly watered their flocks
and cultivated a few fields at the extremities of the distributaries of the Murg-ab
are obliged either to betake themselves to wells and become wholly pastoral, or
else to move inward and become agricultural. Thirty years ago the water of
the main distributary is said to have reached Sheik-i-Mansur, although now Top
Taranchi, 40 miles upstream near Gumush Tepe, is the limit. Another branch
reached Kara Burun at every flood-time 10 years ago, but now it flows only to
Aravali, 45 miles farther upstream, and even at that point the people are obliged
to depend on wells for their main water-supply. In the same way it is only
seven years since the canal that now ends at Kurtli Tepe flowed 4 miles farther to
West Kishman.

These facts do not necessarily mean that the total amount of water has
decreased during the last quarter of a century. They show nothing as to that
question, either one way or the other. What they indicate is a change on the
part of the people from a state of semi-nomadic pastoralism to one of sedentary
agriculture by reason of the changes that have followed the Russian occupation
of 1884. In the old days the nomads allowed the water to flow nearly at will
in almost the natural channels, and the villages and fields were located along the