National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.1 |
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48o A CYCLE OF FESTIVE FIGURES CH. XLIII
to find on the enclosing wall. By good fortune there
emerged some short inscriptions painted in Kharoshthi
script and Indian language by the side of the two figures
of the upper frieze first laid bare. What better proof
could I have wished in support of the conclusion to
which my previous finds had already led me, that these
temples and frescoes dated back to the time when the sites
of Niya and Lop-nor still flourished ? But even thus I
was little prepared for the sight which the frescoed wall
remnants presented when at the end of two days of hard
digging, in an icy gale and whirling dust clouds, I could
proceed to the clearing and closer examination of the
paintings.
On the west side a segment of the circular wall,
once probably containing a second entrance, had been
levelled right down to the floor by early treasure-seekers ;
and owing to this destruction the frescoes were found
now extending over two detached hemicycles broken at
either end. The wall decoration in the one to the north
had for some reason suffered so badly that of an upper
frieze nothing could be made out but half-effaced groups
of small figures. But in the frescoed dado below, which
reached to a height of about three feet from the floor, it
was easy, in spite of faded colours and plentiful cracks of
the plaster, to recognize a remarkably graceful composition
almost classical in design and details. Its connecting
feature was a broad festoon of wreaths and flowers which
youthful supporters carried on their shoulders with the
ease and abandon of true Putti. Among them wingless
E rotes alternated with young figures wearing the Phrygian
cap and of a type which, in spite of a certain girlish cast
of face, unmistakably recalled the Mithras worshipped
throughout the Roman empire.
But more remarkable still were the portraits which
filled in succession the hollows of the undulating festoon.
In each of them there rose the head and bust of a man or
girl, presented in classical outlines and yet with a freedom
of individual expression which made the effect most
striking. The types of men's heads differed. Some were
quite Roman in look, others with their peculiar cut of hair
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