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

collectively by the name of Fahreh, and this name, recorded also as Fehruj, has
been connected with that of the capital of Gedrosia, Πούρα, where Alexander
rested his army after its disastrous march through Makrān.¹ Philological evi-
dence is inadequate for this particular location of Pura, as also for the conjecture
which would seek a survival of its name in the last syllable of the name Bampūr.
But on general topographical grounds it appears highly probable, as I hope to
prove when discussing Alexander's route through Gedrosia to Karmania in
another place, that the capital of the Gedrosia of his time must have lain some-
where in the vicinity of Bampūr, which has remained the chief place of the pro-
vince ever since. Possibly some notice of Arab geographers may yet supply a
link rendering a more exact determination possible.

Fahreh enjoys a permanent supply of good water from a series of qanāts which
tap the subterraneous drainage from the right bank of the Bampūr river some
distance below the point where it debouches from the Dāmīn valley in the north.
The canals fed by them some two miles farther down irrigate lands situated near
one of the flood-beds in which the river spreads itself to the east of Fahreh before
it takes a sharp turn to the west in a deep-cut united bed. The scrub-covered
area to the east, over which those flood-beds extend, holds patches of cultivation,
but this is liable to damage by inundation and the vagaries of the river. This
potentially fertile ground is hence likely to have undergone considerable changes
during historical times. The village of Shahr-darāz, situated in this area at a
distance of about 3 miles from Īrān-shahr, bears a name meaning 'the large
town', but counts only some fifty dwellings, almost all mere mat-huts. The
small mound some 4 to 5 feet high nearby, known as Tump, which had been
reported to me as an old site, showed only a few painted potsherds of uncertain
type, and a small debris area west of it only fragments of late ware.

But on proceeding about a mile farther to the south-east towards the hamlet
of Sar-kahūrān we were shown another small debris area close to where the wide
main flood-bed of the river from Dāmīn is joined by another descending from
the hills above Aptār. Here fragments of grey and red ware with painted designs
of the same chalcolithic type as at Bampūr were plentiful (Shd. 1, 5, 7, 9; Pl.
XI). They suffice to prove that prehistoric occupation extended over this area.
At Sar-kahūrān, reached after another mile, there was found a mound, about 20
feet high and manifestly artificial, but showing no remains apart from some low
decayed mud walls forming enclosures.

Near Fahreh itself the only place with remains of former occupation is the
mound called Qalātuk, not far from the foot of the gravel terraces which overlook
Īrān-shahr from the north-east. The mound rises about 40 feet above a flood-bed