Ancient Khotan : vol.1 / 538 ページ（白黒高解像度画像）

0538	Ancient Khotan : vol.1
古代コータン : vol.1

acknowledge ever having visited the 'kône-shahr' near it. Our wanderings of the previous two
days had left me no illusions as to the value of our two worthy guides. Yet as better were
not to be got and time was getting more than ever precious, I decided to set out with them
on the morning of March 25. Old Turdi had never visited these sites, and from the 'treasure-
seeker's' point of view, did not rate them highly. They were too near, he thought, to the
cultivated area to have retained much of either 'treasure' or antiques. Yet he was intelligent
enough to realize my interest in them, and I could rely on his instinctive experience of the
desert coming to the help of whatever local knowledge the Domoko guides might prove to
possess. In order to be prepared for the excavation of any structural remains that might
possibly be met, I took along an adequate number of labourers. The heat of the daytime
was already becoming troublesome in the desert. But by the precaution of having all the water-
tanks filled before the start, I provided against immediate risk resulting from prolonged wander-
ings. The three days' Odyssey which followed, and which could be traced in detail only on
a large scale map, fully bore out my misgivings. Yet there were instructive experiences and
interesting antiquarian observations to compensate for the fatigue.

Deserted
fields of
'old Ponak'. The first two miles in a north-westerly direction brought us to the limit of the newly-
irrigated land, when to my surprise I came upon unmistakable marks of earlier cultivation
beyond. Old fields overgrown with tamarisk and thorny scrub could be clearly distinguished
by the little embankments dividing them, as well as by the lines of dry 'Ariks' that once
carried water to them. There was but little of drift-sand, and that mainly where rudimentary
tamarisk thickets were forming to catch and retain it—the first beginnings, it seemed to me,
of the tamarisk-covered sand-cones I have had so often to refer to. The Domoko labourers
explained that these were the fields of 'old Ponak' village, which had been abandoned 'in their
grandfathers' time', i.e. forty or fifty years before. Passing along the road still frequented
by the people visiting the cemeteries of the deserted villages, I arrived, some three miles further
north-west, at a point known as Kobza-giram-shâh ¹.

Abandoned
homesteads
of 'old
Domoko'. Here we had reached the southern edge of 'old Domoko', an area covered with the remains
of a deserted village group. The crumbling ruins of mud-built dwellings, constructed and arranged
exactly as in the now inhabited villages of this tract and forming detached groups, seemed to
extend, together with the interspersed orchards, cemeteries and fields, for about three miles from
east to west. Going towards the north-west we kept between them for nearly three miles. The
mud-walls, strengthened by the insertion of vertical bundles of Kumush, still rose often 4 to 5 ft.
above the ground, and the massive fireplaces were intact even to a greater height, as seen in
the photograph (Fig. 55) of one of these ruined houses. The deserted homesteads had been
stripped of all materials that could be of use, such as beams, wooden doorposts, &c. As scarcely
any sand had accumulated about the crumbling ruins, their rapid and complete disappearance
seemed inevitable as soon as erosion set in. Of the latter no trace, however, appeared as yet
over this area.

Remains on
ground of
future Tati. It may be due to this preservation of the surface layer of loess that so little of pottery
débris could be seen on the ground. Erosion would probably bring to light plenty of it from
different layers. Of other characteristic Tati remains, such as smelting refuse, pieces of charcoal
and broken stones from the river-beds, there was a great deal to be seen on the ground. Of
the fruit-trees in the orchards only low stumps remained, these trees having evidently died off
very soon after irrigation ceased and having then been cut down for timber or fuel. On the

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