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

process of paring and thinning the wall after the vessel has been reversed and reseated.
It is really a technical fault which the potter has often partially effaced by scraping again
when the wheel was stationary.

Of globular jars B. ii. 198 (Pl. XIII) is grey and B. ii. 205–8 (Pl. XVII) are greyish-
brown. All are of substantial thickness and strong enough for ordinary use. The large
wide-mouthed bowl B. ii. 202 (Pl. XIII) is similar to B. ii. 201 on the same plate, but grey.

Decoration. Sir Aurel Stein has already described the painted decoration on this ware,
and the following remarks are given merely in amplification of certain details.

Many of the vessels are quite plain and such motifs as are used on the decorated
ones are few. One of the most frequent motifs is the leaf garland placed round the
upper part of several globular jars and the two large bowls B. ii. 201, 202 (Pl. XIII).
The undulating midrib of the three examples on this plate is in slight relief, as are also
the border lines of the decorative band on the jar B. ii. 198. It will be seen that the edges
of the leaf are serrated in B. ii. 198 and 202, but smooth in 201. Of the four examples
on Pl. XVII, B. ii. 206, 207, and 212 have smooth edges. B. ii. 205 is peculiar, having no
midrib but groups of horns on the blade of the leaf. (Cf. Bam. A. 162 (Pl. XIV), where the
midrib has no blade but a beast occupies each of the hollows.) The background of the
garland is hatched. Simplified garlands appear on the jars D. 249 (Pl. XV); F. i. 271
(Pl. XVI); B. i. 119, ii. 211 (Pl. XVII). This garland motif is very widespread and occurs
on the pottery from Bampūr, Dāmīn, Katukān, Chāh Ḥusainī; Shāhī-tump, Kēj valley;
Sīstān and elsewhere. Its influence is traceable in a very great amount of the decoration
on 'chalcolithic' pottery.

The paint used on the pottery varies in colour from dense black to a sienna brown.
The variation in colour may be attributable to various causes, such as the composition
of the colour itself, the extent of dilution in applying it, the character of the body or of the
surface wash (slip), and the inequality of firing. Ceramic colours much diluted or badly
compounded sometimes lack the necessary proportion of 'flux' and do not adhere
firmly. The influence of time and the conditions of burial would also have their effect.
This condition is sometimes mistaken for unfired, non-ceramic painting. It also happens
that an unsuitable slip will flake off, bringing the paint with it, as is the case with the
jar B. ii. 205 (Pl. XVII), and others, or leaving a mere ghost of the pattern on the under-
lying body.

A curious effect is produced when the excess moisture used in diluting the paint for
convenience of working, spreads beyond the limits of the painted line and forms a sort
of aura, just as a blot of ink on moist blotting-paper will do. This is frequently found
on some grey ware. In certain examples the paint seems to have exhaled a vaporous
influence during firing, which has communicated itself to adjacent vessels and has pro-
duced a nebulous version of the pattern thereon. The practice of firing bowls nested one
within the other is, in their case, the chief contributary cause of this result. An interest-
ing example occurs in the bowl B. ii. 162 (Pl. XVI), where the border of horns from
the outside of one bowl has imprinted a reversed offset on the inside of the other.
This also explains why, in this solitary instance among Khurāb bowls, the horns are
bending from left to right.