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| 0173 |
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 |
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seemed as if three civilizations from the East, West, and
South had combined to leave their written traces at this
lonely watch-station in the desert, and with them to
demonstrate also the earliest writing materials.
Expert investigation effected by learned collaborators
since my return to Europe has singularly confirmed these
conjectures. Professor J. von Wiesner, the chief authority
on plant physiology as connected with the history of paper
manufacture, has proved by a microscopical analysis of the
paper that the material used for those documents represents
the earliest effort so far known at producing rag paper. I
had reason to feel equally gratified after the publication of
one of the documents by my learned friend Dr. A. Cowley,
and its subsequent analysis by M. R. Gauthiot, an accom-
plished young Iranian scholar. These furnished conclusive
evidence that the script was, indeed, of Aramaic origin,
and the language an early form of that Iranian dialect
which was spoken in ancient Sogdiana (the region of the
present Samarkand and Bokhara), and of which the Sogdian
manuscripts recently recovered from Turfan and Tun-huang
have preserved us later specimens. The documents can
be clearly recognized now as letters, and complete decipher-
ment may reasonably be hoped for as a result of further
researches.
The old fort (T. XIV.) near which my camp stood,
has already been briefly described in connection with my
first passage along this route. With its thick walls of
stamped clay it was an imposing structure to behold
(Fig. 154). But vainly did I search within it and along its
walls for any definite indication of its age. Not even refuse
was to be found inside, a curious fact, seeing how grateful
travellers would feel for the shelter it offers against cutting
winds. My men, too, had shunned the place ; for, rightly
enough, they suspected that it would swarm with those
terribly aggressive little insect fiends, the 'Tsao-p'i,' as
the Chinese called them, from which we had trouble
enough to escape even in the open. This absence of
any mark of ancient occupation at a ruin occupying so
convenient a position by the high road to Lop-nor puzzled
me greatly, and as soon as my reconnaissances farther
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