National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

traced by me right away from the uplands overlooking the Indus valley to Ker-
mān and Fārs, it seems safe to assume that it was practised for a prolonged
period.

The Damba-kōh site derives its special interest from the fact that here we
find the burial cairns associated with remains which undoubtedly mark a place
in contemporary occupation by the living. I have already referred above to the
completely isolated hillock, Dam. I, which rises, as Plan 7 shows, in a recess
between the southernmost portion of the ridge and the old river-bed. It consists
of two rocky knolls, both falling away very steeply westwards and joined
by a narrow saddle. The northern knoll, which is the larger, rises to a height
of about 140 feet above the level ground, and the one to the south to a little
over 100 feet. The south-eastern slopes of both being less steep are thickly
covered with shapeless debris from the completely decayed walls of dwellings
built with uncut stones, and from the terraces which once bore them. A narrow
shoulder descends from the lower knoll towards the saddle or neck, and for
a distance of about 80 feet affords somewhat more level space than is to be found
elsewhere. This appears to have been occupied by a double row of small rooms
built back to back, as seen in Fig. 23. The walls, built of roughly laid undressed
slabs, still stood to a height of 3–4 feet on the west side, but were broken in
many places both there and within. Eastwards, where the shoulder slopes more
steeply, the walls had for the most part crumbled away altogether.

Heavy debris from the fallen portions of the walls covered the interior of the
rooms. On clearing this away there was found, in a layer of soft earth and small
stones, a variety of objects left behind by the dwellers. Among them were a
number of roughly oblong querns, concave on their grinding surface and exactly
corresponding in shape to those I had found at the chalcolithic site of Kulli.¹¹
The stone cylinder, i. v. 21, may have been used on such stones. Hones and
fragmentary stone implements of uncertain use are i. iii. 22, 26; vii. 24, 27;
a decorated spinning-whorl is i. iv. 52 (Pl. X). Beads of terra-cotta, glass, and
carnelian (i. v. 41; iii. 31, 56, &c.) were numerous. Other small objects are
the iron ring, i. ii. 40, and the thin silver (?) ear or nose ring, i. iii. 51 (Pl. X).
Fragments of glazed pottery in various shades of green turned up in several of
the rooms. The pieces of a large painted vessel, i. 46–50, deserve notice, as
the style of its decoration agrees closely with that of painted fragments found
within or near the cairns, and of the far more abundant painted potsherds picked
up on the surface of the hillock, Dam. I, or below it.¹² When subsequently five