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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks : vol.1 |
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OCR Text
ants I had already started the archaeological work that was to keep us busy for the next three and a half months.
The ruined town, known as Idikut-shahri or as ‘Dakianus’ Town’, which adjoins the large village of Kara-khoja was the first scene of our excavations. It has long ago been identified as the site of Kao-chang or Khocho, as it is called in early Turkish, which was the Turfan capital during Tang rule and subsequently under the Uigurs. Massive walls of stamped clay enclose here an area nearly a mile square, but of irregular shape, containing the ruins of very numerous structures, all built of sun-dried bricks or stamped clay. Turfan with its very scanty tree growth, apart from fruit trees, could supply but a minimum of timber. Most of them were Buddhist temples and monastic buildings, and a number of them of quite imposing dimensions. For generations past these debris-filled ruins had been quarried by the cultivators of the adjoining villages for the sake of manuring earth, and many of the smaller structures thus dug into had subsequently been levelled to gain more ground for cultivation.
Since the fruitful excavations made here first by Professor Grünwedel and then by the late Professor Von LeCoq, both of the Ethnographic Museum of Berlin, the destructive operations of the villagers had been further stimulated by the desire to secure manuscript remains and antiques as valuable by-products for sale to European travellers and others at Urumchi and occasional Chinese collectors. Of such finds it was possible to acquire a fair number. But for me it was more satisfactory to find that in some of the ruins deeper strata of debris had escaped exploitation. Their systematic clearing was rewarded by a variety of small but
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