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

fragments of fine, thin grey ware, and plenty of red pottery bearing painted
decoration in black of a characteristic chalcolithic type. Apart from purely
geometric motifs, such as rows of triangles, chequers, and miscellaneous
hachured shapes (Pl. VIII, IX), numerous specimens showed rows of horned
animals highly stylized but obviously derived from those mountain sheep (Ibex)
which are to be seen in naturalistic representations on the painted pottery found
in the lower strata. The pieces A. 298, 300, 301, 304 (Pl. VII) well illustrate the
gradual transformation of the conventionalized animals into mere decorative
design. Plates XXI, XXII, XXVII–XXIX of my Archaeological Tour in Gedrosia
show how common such rows of freely treated mountain sheep are on the
painted pottery of certain chalcolithic sites in British Makrān. From the same
layer came the terra-cotta figurine of a bull's head, 19, and a horizontally fluted
tubular object of stone spreading out into a bowl-shaped head with a stone
marble, A. 311 a, b (Pl. X), just fitting the bowl; together they may possibly have
served as a toy. The occurrence of highly polished plain ware with burnished
lines, A. 240, 303, is of interest. The fragments of perforated pottery such as
were found both in this layer and lower down (c. 317; Pl. IX) were frequent
also at chalcolithic sites in British Makrān.²

The layer comprising the levels from about 3 to 5 feet above the ground
proved particularly rich in ceramic and other remains of interest. Plates VII,
VIII, and IX show the great variety of designs painted in black mostly over a red
or grey ground.²ᵃ Along with numerous representations of that favourite motif,
the mountain goat, whether treated in conventionalized or more naturalistic
fashion, A. 72–5, 336–42, 345, c. 71, 76 (Pl. VII), we have also a realistic draw-
ing of it in A. 333 (Pl. IX). 'Feathered' trees, such as are often represented on
the painted pottery of chalcolithic sites in British Makrān (Kullī, Mehrī, Nūn-
dara) appear frequently, as in 87, 133, 383, 380 (Pl. IX), combined with
geometrical patterns. The latter in the shape of chequers, lozenges, triangles,
&c., are seen alone in 67, 91, 313, 326, 405 (Pl. IX). We find foliate shapes,
either detached as in 77, 352 (Pl. IX), or else combined into garland-like
ornament (134, 351, Pls. VIII, IX). Zigzag or scrabbled lines, either horizontal
or aslant, are inserted between broad bands (A. 78, Pl. VIII; 355, 358, Pl. IX).
Numerous little cups and jars, like A. 61, 160 (Pl. XIV), show the small
bases characteristic of such vessels from chalcolithic sites of Balūchistān and
Makrān. A large jar, A. 162 (Pl. XIV), is decorated with a raised wavy band
of black and small painted figures of mountain sheep in the hollows.

A new type of ceramic ware first presented itself in this stratum in the shape
of a small jar, A. 161 (Pl. VI), and fragments of a hard dark-grey material,