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0240 Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1
Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 / Page 240 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000234
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The Stupa, when at last reached, was a sight that cheered
my archæological heart. In size and proportion it closely
resembled the Mauri Tim Stupa near Khanui. Though its
exterior had suffered more decay, and an excavation on the
top showed that it had not escaped the ravages of the
"treasure-seeker," it still rose to a height of nearly 29 feet.
Immediately around the Stupa I found the ground strewn
with broken bits of ancient pottery, exactly as seen at
Mokuila and on the great site subsequently traversed. So
the conclusion seems justified that the habitations which
these scanty remains indicate belonged, like the Stupa, to
the Buddhist period.

On the first attempt to reach Topa Tim on the other side
of the ravine I had passed a débris-strewn area far more
extensive than those seen before. Stretching to the north
of the caravan route it seemed to cover fully three square
miles. My guides called it the 'Tati' of Kakshal. The
relics of ancient habitations that lay scattered here in patches
of varying extent and thickness comprised, besides pottery
fragments of all sorts: pieces of burned brick, slag, broken bits
of bone and metal, and similar hard refuse. The conditions
in which these remains presented themselves appeared at first
very puzzling. But the examination of similar sites which I
subsequently traced at many points beyond the limits of the
present cultivated area in the Khotan region, and which are
all known by the general name of 'Tati,' gradually furnished
a convincing explanation. The most striking feature noticed
at Kakshal, as well as at all other 'Tatis,' was that the
above-named fragments rest on nothing but natural loess,
either hard or more or less disintegrated into a sandy con-
dition. It was easy to ascertain that the soil underneath
contained neither walls nor other structural remains; for
the small banks of loess which rise here and there from the
general level of a Tati, sometimes to a height of 10 to 15 feet,
and on the top of which the fragments usually lie thickest,