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

XXX   PREFACE.

strata of the third century A. D., our exploring shafts showed that the base of culture was probably not older than a few centuries B. C.

. There can be . little doubt that among the great number of wasted mounds on the large Mery oasis some are exceedingly ancient, but intense heat and the prevalence of dysentery among the personnel and beginning mortality among the workmen put an end to excavating, and we removed to the more healthy altitude of Samarkand, where, after a hasty examina•- tion: into the local archeological possibilities, I disbanded the expedition.

Mr. Huntington was left to make a rapid survey of the distribution of mounds on the Mery oasis, and Mr. R: W. Pumpelly started an expedition on his own account, for physiographic observation, through the mountains of Bokhara and over the Pamir to Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan, the results of which are incorporated in his chapters in the second volume.

It was my intention to defer publication of the results of the expedition

of 1904 until after that proposed for 1905. But the condition of unrest in Russia during the winter of 1904-05 caused the Trustees of the Carnegie Institution to postpone the work, and the preparation of the reporta was immediately begun, and continued till 1907.

While each one of the investigators was expected to work up his mate-

rial, there devolved upon me, as initiator and director of the expeditions, the duty of presenting an independent discussion of the results as a whole. I found myself confronted with the task of translating and editing the contributions of the experts, and of drawing my own conclusions from these and from my own observations. To do this I surrounded myself with a library of six hundred or more volumes, covering many of the more important as well as latest writings in the sciences related to our work and problems, besides many borrowed from libraries. Literally living in this problem, for nearly four years, my whole time, reading, and thought has been devoted to acquiring such a general survey of the field as would enable me to discuss

the subject of our results and of their wider bearing in the light of the present

condition of archeological and ethnological, knowledge.   .
Besides incidental inspection of the museums of Tiflis and Tashkent,

numerous visits for study were made to those of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Berlin, Vienna, Zürich, Schafhausen, Cairo, Athens, London, Naples, and Rome, and to those of Paris, including M. De Morgan's systematically, collected finds from Susiana---to me perhaps the most important of all-and in connection with my chapter on chronology a special journey was made, together with 12.: W. Pumpelly, to Egypt to study the rate of growth of

Egyptian: village mounds in comparison with those of Anau.   • .

Of the two alternatives—confining the reports, my-;own included, to a record of observations and finds:—or having-each contributor go further and,,