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0148 On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 / Page 148 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000214
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adequate protection from the snow which a very slight fall,
experienced also by us after leaving Keriya, had deposited.
Owing to the bitter cold it still lay in patches on shaded
slopes. As it was, the sun of one year had bleached and
partly effaced the writing of the topmost tablets where fully
exposed. So I had a special reason to bless the good luck
which had brought me to the site so soon after Ibrahim's
discovery.
He at once showed me the spot where he had unearthed
the tablets. It proved to be the corner of a small room situ-
ated in the northern wing of the building between other
apartments. There, in a little recess between a large brick-
built fire-place and the west wall of the room, he had come
upon a heap of tablets by scooping out the sand with his
hands. The 'treasure' he looked for was not there. So the
ancient documents which he had found stored there, ap-
parently with some sort of arrangement, were just thrown
away into an adjoining room.
My first task was to get the men to clear the room where
Ibrahim had come upon those precious tablets. It was an
easy matter, as the room was not large and the sand cover-
ing its floor nowhere more than four feet deep. In the course
of this operation two dozen wooden documents were re-
covered on the original earthen floor and on a raised sitting
platform by the side of the fire-place. When I next made a
careful search myself for the scattered remains of Ibrahim's
haul, no less than eighty-five more tablets were recovered.
The subsequent clearing of the adjoining rooms in the north
wing of the ruined house added still further to their number.
So I found myself before the day's work was ended in the
possession of truly abundant materials.