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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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| 0415 |
Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 |
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numbers. It was a room 26 ft. square, with a raised platform of
plaster running round three of its sides, while the remains of eight
posts arranged in a square indicated a central area which probably
had a raised roof to admit light and air, after the fashion still
observed in the halls of large Turkestan houses. As the protecting
layer of sand was here only 2 ft. deep little more was left of the
walls than rows of broken posts. The first inscribed tablets, too,
which turned up in the sand close to the surface, had suffered
greatly, their warped and split wood showing plainly the effect of
the terrible summer heat to which they must have been exposed
since the winds had carried away most of the sand that originally
protected them.
All the more delighted was I when I found that even the light
remaining layer of sand had sufficed to preserve in a more or less
legible condition the threescore of tablets that were found covering
the platform along the southern side of the room. In some places,
particularly near the centre of the wall, they were rising in small
closely packed heaps above the plaster flooring, evidently just as
left by the last occupants. But a considerable number of other
inscribed tablets showed plainly by their position that they had
been disturbed at some early period, apparently not long after the
building had been deserted. For, in addition to some twenty
tablets which were found scattered about in the loose sand covering
the floor just in front of the south and east platforms, I unearthed
over two dozen more from the southern part of the central area of
the room marked by the posts already referred to.
As the layer of these tablets was being removed it was seen that
they had rested on a square piece of strong matting which, sup-
ported by some light rafters also recovered, must have once formed
a roof over the central area. The matting was found lying about a
foot above the floor, thus showing the depth to which the invading
sand had accumulated before the roof fell. The tablets found above
the matting could only have got there subsequently. They may
well have been thrown there when the abandoned dwelling was
visited by some one anxious to search its remaining contents after
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