国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

Evidence of
desiccation.

scarcely be any doubt that it is this same drainage which, finding its way underground, now comes
to light in the marshes east and south-east of Ch'iao-tzŭ. But still more obvious did it appear, in
view of the conditions of the ground, that it would be wholly impossible to bring here at present
adequate surface water for the irrigation of the old oasis. Hence I could not avoid the conclusion
that there was clear evidence of desiccation, whether general or restricted to this region, and this
gives additional interest to the archaeological facts resulting from the examination of the ruins.

Ruined
walls of
So-yang-
ch'êng.

I may commence my description of them with the ruined town of So-yang-ch'êng already
referred to. As the plan reproduced in Pl. 46 shows, the massive walls of stamped clay enclosing
it form a quadrilateral which measures about 670 yards outside on the north, 493 yards on the south,
and some 650 yards on each of the other faces. The walls of stamped clay vary in thickness
from about 20 to 30 feet at their foot and are provided with round bastions at the corners and
rectangular ones at irregular intervals along the curtains. The two remaining gates on the north
and west were protected by rectangular outworks such as are still found, but usually in a semicircular
shape, outside the gates of modern Chinese town walls. At the south-west corner the walls form
a receding angle, and a small walled enclosure constructed within this may have been intended to
serve as a reduit. There were remains of inner enclosures also on the north and south faces, but
too decayed to permit of a determination of their character.

Double line
of east wall.

A very peculiar feature of the ruined fortification is that it has two walls facing east, the inner
built at a distance approximating 200 yards from the outer, but not quite parallel to it. The inner
wall, which in Fig. 185 is seen along a great portion of its length, had been breached in many places
by erosion. The result of the scouring action of wind-driven sand, corresponding here exactly to
that described in the case of the deserted town south of An-hsi,¹ is strikingly illustrated by Fig. 240,
which shows a section of this inner east wall of So-yang-ch'êng. But, in spite of this long-continued
process of erosion, the foundations of this inner wall were still continuous, and the position of some
bastions, and perhaps also of a gate near the middle, still recognizable. It was very different with
the outer east wall, which had to bear the full erosive force of the winds blowing from the east. It
had been practically razed to the ground in most places and was traceable elsewhere only in a line
of badly decayed low segments. Taking into account the fact that the outer east wall, while under-
going erosion itself, must to some extent have afforded protection to the inner one, it is impossible
definitely to assert that the better condition of the latter is necessarily evidence of later construction.
Yet, remembering what I had seen at the east wall of the present 'town' of An-hsi, the thought
naturally occurred to me that this inner east wall of So-yang-ch'êng had been raised for protection
at a later time, when the outer wall had been reduced by the slow but relentless attacks of wind and
sand beyond hope of repair or defence. The position of the inner wall relative to the north gate
and the absence of semicircular bastions at its ends seem to support this conjecture.

Effects of
wind-
erosion of
east wall.

Preserva-
tion of town
walls north
and south.

After the observations made at An-hsi it was no surprise to find that the north and south walls
of the ruined town had suffered relatively little decay and were nowhere completely breached.
Their direction parallel to the destructive winds, which here, too, come mainly from the east, fully
accounts for their preservation, and this affords another striking illustration of the conditions pre-
vailing at the ancient walled station of Lou-lan. Behind the shelter of the east walls drift-sand had