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

next stage and the last of this desert journey. What potsherds could be picked
up on the mound were all of the same coarse late ware we had noted at every
mound from Gala-chāh onwards.

From the Ziārat-i-Mīr Mikdād, also known as Ziārat-i-Zergardī from the
name of the surrounding ground,¹ I decided to turn south towards the terminal
course of the Halīl Rūd in search of older sites. Before, however, setting out in
that direction on the morning of March 30th I was able to visit the small oasis
of Chāh Ḥasan, stretching for about 1½ miles to the north-west of the Ziārat
and watered by a small rivulet descending from the Kōh-i-Shāh Sawārān.
Though the dwellings here, too, were only mat-huts, it was easy to see from the
appearance of the well-laid-out fields that their tillers were true Persians and not
mere Balūch, whom they look down upon as semi-barbarians. Within the little
oasis lies the Tump-i-Dehgān, 'the Cultivator's Mound', a practically flat debris
area, measuring 440 yards from north to south and about 300 yards across. On
it glazed potsherds, both plain and patterned, mingle with plenty of unglazed
plain ware, pink or cream-coloured in body, and relief-decorated fragments.
The designs on these latter pieces, all cast from moulds, are in very close agree-
ment with those on pottery found at such early Muhammadan sites as Qalāt-i-
Jamshīd and Hūkird. Hence the conclusion seems justified that occupation here
preceded the Mongol period. On a smaller debris area, about two furlongs to
the south-east, the ceramic remains were of the same kinds.

Before I proceed to give an account of the sites examined along the terminal
course of the Halīl Rūd some general observations on the ground traversed since
leaving the riverine belt of the Bampūr river call for record. After the ample
evidence of prehistoric occupation which we had been able to gather all along the
area watered by the Bampūr river from Dāmīn down to Chāh Ḥusainī, it was a
surprise, far from welcome at first, to find that the remains of all the mounds
surveyed since leaving the Bampūr area dated from later times. Nowhere on
our passage to the vicinity of the Halīl Rūd did we succeed in tracing any sign
of prehistoric settlements having existed on this ground. The negative evidence
thus afforded deserves all the more attention because, from the close agreement
between the indications gathered in advance from my Balūch informants and the
facts ascertained by inquiries on the journey, it may be safely concluded that
there are no mounds of any size to be found in this desert tract apart from those
which we were shown and actually examined.