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

EXCAVATIONS AND FINDS AT THE NORTH KURGAN.   99

panying it and surrounding it do not differ in specific character from those of the terraces. Here, too, the fragments of pottery found on the surface and immediately under it were chiefly of the red and gray monochrome group, with very little of the painted variety of group y. At the level of the skeleton, on the other hand, there occurred almost exclusively the last-named variety, and under this only the " unmixed " culture layers containing pottery of group y.

Terrace VI (see figs. 28 and 29).—Near terrace v the trench, descending the southern half of the hill, bends a little toward the southwest, on account of the irregular form of the surface. Just here a shallow basin-shaped depression was observed on the surface, the explanation of which appeared in the deeper layers. In the northern wall of the trench there came to light at the level of +31 feet a broad and extended hearth filled with ashes. Near it, but below its level, there

was extracted a modern and but slightly rusted iron nail ;

and the digging soon exposed

a great hole which, in the form of a roomy passage, extended

into terrace v and could be

followed underneath a wall which was discovered there at

the level of + 28 feet. Pre-

sumably this passage was the work of some animal, and be-

longs with other tunnel-like

passages which appear in the walls of Komorof 's trench and

which need especial attention during excavation. This passage had at one time had an opening on the surface, and

the basin-like depression was   .   Fig. 35.—Pithos in Terrace III.

caused by its caving in. Where such occurrences have taken place, the layers must necessarily have become mixed and afford no basis for trustworthy inferences.

About I foot below the level of the hearth a child 's skeleton was exposed in the western wall of the excavation (see special report of Warner) ; and on the opposite side of the terrace, at + 25 feet, an accumulation of potsherds was found, together with fragments of different large pithoi. Here, therefore, begin the older culture layers of group y. The upper mixed layers also contained a predominating quantity of the older pottery. Nevertheless, if we follow the order of succession observed in the layers elsewhere in the hill, we must assign both the hearth and the child's skeleton found in this terrace to the younger culture and recognize a causative relation between them. They correspond to the flat stones ( +32.5 feet) , or the somewhat lower-lying ash layer ( +3o feet 7 inches) , in terrace v. The excavation of the deeper layers in terrace vi was rendered difficult and even