Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 / Page 396 (Color Image)

0396	Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1

244 THE SHRINES OF KHADALIK CH. XX

Though among the mass of manuscript remains there

were no datable documents, I could not feel in doubt as to

the age of the ruin. All pictorial and relievo remains

pointed clearly to the period when the shrines of the

Dandan-oilik site were abandoned, i.e. the close of the eighth century A.D. The discovery of some Tibetan lines

on the Chinese Brahmi rolls previously mentioned agreed

with this conclusion ; but definite chronological evidence

was to come from the remains of the ruin which I next

proceeded to excavate on September 27th. This was a

temple marked by a low débris heap some fifty yards to the

south-west. Here the cella proved smaller, twenty-seven

feet square, with a single quadrangular enclosure ; but the

destruction of the walls had not been quite so thorough, and

finds of artistic interest were relatively more numerous.

Small painted panels, as well as excellently modelled

small relievos in hard plaster (Fig. 76), turned up near

the north wall containing the entrance. The relievos had

undoubtedly formed part of decorative halos around life-

size stucco images ; but of the latter, modelled in much

more friable plaster, only sadly broken fragments such as

hands and parts of heads, survived. Of technical interest

were finds of moulds in ` plaster of Paris,' which had served

for casting small relievos of figures and floral ornaments

such as formed part of the wall decoration in these shrines,

as well as for portions of the larger stucco images. Some

fine wood carvings, in relievo and in the round, also turned

up, besides little clay models of Stupas in plenty.

Among manuscript finds I was fortunate to recover

here large pieces, including several complete leaves, of a

Sanskrit Buddhist text written on birch-bark and probably,

on palaeographical evidence, to be attributed to the fourth or fifth century A.D. The brittle birch-bark sheets became

wonderfully fresh in appearance when I gave them a good

bath, such as they needed after the scorching they had

manifestly undergone and their twelve hundred years of

burial in arid sand. I could greet them as friends from

Kashmir, which the material clearly indicated as their

place of origin. Some of the paper manuscripts found

here showed traces of having been exposed to great heat,

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