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0183 On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1
On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 / Page 183 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000214
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and in perfect preservation, and close to it the mummified
bodies of two mice.

It seems probable that this large but unfortunately badly
eroded structure marks the position of a residence at least
temporarily occupied by a person of consequence. To this
points the great size of a hall, measuring forty-one by thirty-
five feet, and the discovery made on a subsequent visit to the
site that to the south-west of the ruin there extends for over
half a mile an area where the ground not hidden by dunes
is thickly covered with fragments of pottery and other hard
debris. It is obviously ground once closely occupied by
houses which, being built only with walls of sun-dried bricks
or stamped clay (the material used also nowadays for ordin-
ary dwellings in towns and villages of this region), could
not hold out so long against wind erosion as the superior
timber-and-wattle built structures of the well-to-do.

I cannot attempt to give details of the busy days spent in
searching the chain of dwellings stretching southward (Fig.
46). Some had suffered badly from erosion; others had been
better protected, and the clearing of the high sand which
filled their rooms cost great efforts. Kharoshthi records on
wood, whether letters, accounts, drafts or memos, turned up
in almost every one of these dwellings. Besides, there were
found architectural wood carvings, household objects and
implements illustrative of everyday life and the prevailing
industries. Though nothing of intrinsic value had been left
behind by the last dwellers of this modest Pompeii, there
was sufficient evidence of the ease in which they had lived
in the large number of individual rooms provided with fire-
places, comfortable sitting-platforms, wooden cupboards,
etc. Remains of fenced gardens and of avenues of poplars