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

conspicuous half-ruined fort built in the third quarter of the last century by a
Balūch chief of Geh who claimed authority over the neighbouring portion of
Persian Makrān. A small plateau known as Jasa-mētag, which adjoins the hill
on the south, is protected by cliffs which form a natural wall rising above the
narrow foreshore. Small mounds of rough stone-built dwellings and pottery
debris, including glazed ware manifestly of Muhammadan times, could be traced
over a considerable portion of the plateau and on some small ridges close by. On
one of these over which the track from Chāhbār descends I had noticed on our
first arrival rows of oblong cavities cut into the bare rock surface, obviously
graves, all orientated in the orthodox Muslim fashion.

For a distance of about a mile from Jasa-mētag, the ground which stretches
from east to west along the torrent bed and the narrow strip of cultivation
adjoining it bears similar marks of former occupation. That this dated princi-
pally, if not wholly, from Muhammadan times was shown by the extensive grave-
yards found in several places where the rocky layer of calcareous sandstone crops
out with a gently tilted bare surface. The graves covering these spaces in
regular closely serried rows are invariably alined from north to south in accor-
dance with Muhammadan religious practice. The selection of such spaces as
burial grounds was evidently due to the fact that their bare rocky soil and inclined
surface precluded their use either for building or for cultivation. Moreover,
excavation in rock comparatively easy to cut provided protection for the resting-
places of the dead which otherwise would have had to be secured, in obedience
to Muslim custom, by lining the grave with masonry or timber.

At first it was somewhat puzzling to find that in a considerable number of
graves, either laid bare by the partial crumbling away of the rock ledge which
they adjoined or else affected by erosion, what seemed the bottom of the grave
was exposed at a depth of only 2 or 3 feet. But the explanation was soon fur-
nished by the systematic clearing of more than a dozen graves at the burial
ground marked I in the sketch plan (Plan 9), measuring about 318 yards from
north-west to south-east and 90 yards across. The rock shelf exposed did not
mark the bottom of the grave. A narrow excavation descended by its side
3 or 4 feet deeper and was adjoined on the opposite side by a kind of low niche,
allowing just adequate space for the laying out of the body. This arrangement
facilitated also the closing of the grave proper by means of large stone slabs
placed over it slantwise, their ends resting on the raised shelf. By this means
the available space could also be utilized with greater economy. I may add that
exactly the same arrangement was to be seen at the far more extensive rock-
hewn graveyards which stretch all over the hill-sides behind Tāhirī, the medieval
Muhammadan port of Sīrāf, visited by me on my tour of 1932–3 along the
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