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

that in spite of considerable erosion they have not lost the outlines of their original
form, nor have they acquired so old an appearance as the kurgans at Anau, near
Askhabad, for instance. The Merv kurgans vary in shape from heptagonal in
the case of Munon Tepe, to square, although the latter is the prevailing shape, and
the variation may be due to erosion. Those of the primitive type seem to have
been built without special reference to the points of the compass. The only work
of human hands that is found on the surface is pottery, the commonest red and
green wheel-made varieties for the most part, without a trace of ornament. Occa-
sionally a finer gray variety, also unornamented, is found; and at one place, Yaz
Tepe (No. 6 in the table and No. 4 on plate 57), three pieces of painted pottery
were secured. These latter may be of significance as aids in the dating of the
kurgans, and will be referred to again. Each kurgan appears to have been origi-
nally surrounded by a moat, but in most cases this is largely filled up.

CLASS II. KURGANS OF THE TRANSITION TYPE.

The kurgans of the transition type are often indistinguishable in outward
form from their primitive prototypes, yet on the whole they are larger and more
steep-sided. Most of them were originally rectangular, and several have their
sides or axes oriented north and south. More generally than in Class I the remains
of moats surround the eminences. Outer walls, too, are an occasional feature,
either hemming in the whole of the summit of the hill, as at Ersar Tepe (No. 13),
or surrounding an inclosure in the center of which rises a higher square, as at
Guibekli Tepe (Navel Hill, No. 17 in the table and Nos. 6 and 7 on plate 57), and at
Kuzi Tepe (No. 8), a kurgan of the primitive class. The pottery is of the same
common sorts as in the preceding type, but in the gray variety there is less of the
fine-grained type and more that is coarse and common. One great difference dis-
tinguishes the transition pottery from its predecessor. The older sort is without
incised ornament; its successor of the transition type is characterized by it. In
the oldest mounds of the second class incised ornamentation is rare and consists
chiefly of vertical lines, either parallel on the sides of a jar, or radiating out and
down from the base of the neck. In the more highly developed mounds orna-
mented pottery is exceedingly abundant. In addition to the simple designs just
mentioned there are various others, such as parallel horizontal lines, oblique lines
or scallops around the neck, the wave ornament in various designs made with
implements of from five to ten teeth, and lastly the criss-cross pattern. In some
places the ground is almost covered with pottery bearing this last design, and
invariably the pieces are fragments of large, thick jars like those that bear the
same ornament in the old city of Ghiaur Kala. In this connection it is interesting
to note that among the modern Turkomans of the Merv Oasis the most common
form of large jar bears an incised ornament of the same character. The modern
jars are covered with a crude green glaze and the design is smaller and closer in
pattern, more generally vertical, and far less ornamental and less carefully made
than in former times, but nevertheless it may be a degenerate descendant.

In addition to the art of ornamenting pottery the people of the transition
period had learned another, that of burning bricks with straw. At first the bricks