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

would have involved the shifting of huge masses of sand and a far greater expenditure of time than Other re-
any likely results would have justified. The abundant moisture permeating the lower sand strata mains from
was bound to have affected any other structures at this site quite as much as those already laid bare. ruin.
The condition to which this moisture must have reduced any smaller relics of perishable substance
was illustrated by the small fragment of a wood-carving, Ta. i. 008, almost wholly rotten, showing
a seated Buddha. The other small finds made included decorated terra-cotta pieces, Ta. 004–5;
i. 003, very closely resembling those from the Yōtkan débris strata. Among other pottery remains
some fragments of a vase with green glaze, Ta. 003; i. 001–2, may be specially mentioned.
In view of the interest attaching to the relics brought to light here of Khotanese pictorial art, Chrono-
and also in view of the position of the site far away from the present limits of the oasis, any indica- logical evi-
tions as to the date of the latter would be specially welcome. The safest evidence at present dence of
available is that of the coins. The two found at the ruin itself are the Wu-chu piece already men- site.
tioned and an uninscribed copper coin from the foot of the wall ii. In addition eight poorly preserved
Chinese coins were picked up on a small and completely eroded 'Tati' area to the south of the site.
They are either much worn Wu-chu pieces or else uninscribed.¹⁵ The collective evidence of the
coins thus points to the site having been abandoned before T'ang times. In the present state of our
knowledge no closer date limits can be safely deduced either from the style of the paintings or from
the palaeographic character of the two inscriptions in cursive Central-Asian Brāhmī found by their
side. But if my tentative reading of three characters on a small fragment of coloured wall-plaster
which was found in loose sand at the first trial excavation, Ta. 01, as written in Kharoṣṭhī should
prove right, we should have to push back the upper date limit for the occupation of the site to about
the fifth century A.D.¹⁶ In respect of the position of the site it should be noted that it lies almost Abandon-
exactly in the same latitude as the northernmost of the Kine-tokmak ruins, about 13 miles away to ment before
the east on the other side of the Yurung-kāsh. For these the probability of abandonment before T'ang
the T'ang period has been shown above,¹⁷ and this lower date limit is certain in the case of the Rawak period.
Vihāra, which lies only 3 miles or less further south.¹⁸ In any case we have thus archaeological
proof that the area of the main Khotan oasis on either side of the Yurung-kāsh River must have
extended much further north than it does at present.
On April 11 I moved down by the river and by a long march reached the oasis of Islāmābād Oasis of
(Map No. 27. b. 2), the northernmost outlying settlement of the Khotan district. Even here there Islāmābād.
was striking evidence of the rapid expansion which Khotan cultivation had been undergoing for
some time past; for owing to the construction of a large new canal about 1896 the seven to eight hold-
ings formerly cultivated by settlers from Tawakkël on the opposite bank of the river had grown into
a large colony consisting of about 400 households and capable of supporting many more. A day's
halt at Islāmābād was needed for drying and packing the fresco pieces brought away from Mayaklik,
and also enabled me to secure welcome information about the ruins at the desert hill of Mazār-tāgh
for which I was bound. What I had heard about them in 1900–1 and also on my subsequent visits
to Khotan had sounded extremely vague.¹⁹
But now ten narrow slips of wood, inscribed in Tibetan like those found in the Mīrān fort, were Finds ob-
brought to me by Tawakkël men who the year before had prospected for 'treasure' at a ruin on the tained at
hill-top. Thirteen more were put into my hands by Kāsim Ākhūn of Islāmābād, the son of my old Islāmābād.
guide Aḥmad Merghen,²⁰ who had died a few months earlier. The old hunter had secured them from