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0114 On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1
中央アジア踏査記 : vol.1
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 / 114 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000214
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FIRST EXPLORATIONS AT A SAND-BURIED SITE

After strenuous weeks of geographical work in those for-
bidding mountains south of Khotan where the utter barren-
ness of Nature had given no chance for history to leave
its traces, the time came when I could turn to the fascinating
task of exploring sand-buried ancient sites in the desert. I
had gathered my earliest experience of such work in
December 1900, when on my first expedition I set out from
the Khotan oasis into the sandy wastes northward. The
observations and encouraging discoveries then made were
so instructive and have remained so fresh in my memory
that I feel induced to take a step back in chronology and
to ask the reader of these pages to accompany me on that
initial archaeological venture.

The weeks immediately preceding it had been spent with-
in the Khotan oasis, then looking rather bare and bleak in
spite of all its fertility. The last dust-storm of the year had
effaced all view of the K'un-lun, near as its outer range is
to the oasis where it extends by the Kara-kash and Yurung-
kash rivers as they debouch from the mountains. It had
brushed away all gay-coloured leaves from the trees of the
orchards and arbours and spread over the fertile plain the
atmosphere of a foggy autumn day in England. I had suc-

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