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| 0499 |
Sand-Buried Ruins of Khotan : vol.1 |
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White Walls "), and situated among high sand dunes, at a distance
of nearly fifteen miles from the right bank of the Yurung-kash
opposite Khotan, was my next objective. On the march, and close
to the edge of the cultivated area, I examined with interest the site
known as Tam-öghil, from an adjoining small hamlet, where ancient
" culture-strata," yielding some leaf-gold, besides old coins, terra-
cottas, &c., are worked under exactly the same conditions as those
described at Yotkan. The extent of the excavations is, however,
far more limited, as the available water supply is scanty and the
proceeds are less remunerative. Here, too, the excavations, which
now employ about a dozen people for one and a half to two months
in the year, are said to have been started by the accidental discovery
of gold in a small 'Yar' that had formed about twenty years ago
through the overflow of an irrigation channel. I noticed that the
banks of fertile earth overlying the ancient "culture-stratum" to
a height of 10 to 18 feet, silt deposits as I take it, showed
here and there distinct traces of stratification. Considering the
short distance, less than three miles, which separates this site from
the present right bank of Yurung-kash, it appeared to me possible
that these slight layers, 1 to 1½ inches thick, may, perhaps, be due
to exceptional floods from the river. The fertile soil excavated is
used by the villagers to improve gravelly fields in the vicinity.
As soon as we had passed the edge of the cultivated area, frag-
ments of ancient pottery appeared on the bare loess, cropping up
also in large patches between the low dunes over which our march
led for the next four miles. There was ample evidence that the
belt of villages and fields had extended much further to the north
in ancient times. Then the dunes grew remarkably steep and high,
up to 60 feet and more, the coarse, heavy sand unmistakably
showing its origin from the gravel deposits of the river. Here the
uniform direction of the dunes was also clearly marked, being
N.N.W. to S.S.E. After five miles of these difficult dunes we
reached open and in places much eroded ground near Ak-sipil,
where I thought I could distinguish traces of little embankments
dividing ancient fields, and of distributing 'Ariks' along them.
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