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

tance during the pre-Muhammadan period of local history. Its position near
the head of an extensive stretch of cultivated ground, which must always have
enjoyed exceptional facilities for irrigation from the Halīl Rūd, may well have
made it the chief place of Rūdbār, anyhow in early Muhammadan times. The
notices of Rūdbār given by early Arab geographers (Iṣṭakhrī, Muqaddasī) appar-
ently do not contain any mention of particular localities in this district.³ It only
remains to be noted that though two small ziārats are to be found near the south-
ern foot of the great mound, this itself is shunned by the people of the neighbour-
hood from superstitious fears.

On April 10th a hot and tiring march carried us from Tump-i-Kharg up to
where the canals irrigating the Rūdbār tract to the east of the Halīl Rūd issue.
After about 2½ miles we passed the hamlet of Āb-i-Sardū and near it two small
mounds. One of them rises to 30 feet from a base some 80 yards in diameter.
What pottery could be picked up on the surface showed the same types as that of
Tump-i-Kharg. This was the case also with specimens of ceramic ware brought
from two more mounds of small size near the hamlets of Amīrābād and Tumairi.⁴
They were sighted on the way to Tal-i-siāh, but the need of attending to the
safety of our baggage would not allow me to visit them in person. All the way
up to Tal-i-siāh, where the branch canals fed by the Jū-i-Shāhābād divide at the
foot of a rocky hillock, much difficulty was experienced in getting our camels
across a succession of water channels, all deep-cut and all requiring improvised
bridging. Finally we reached the northernmost limit of Rūdbār at a point
known as Qāsimābād, but uninhabited. There, at the foot of a steep ridge, the
Jū-i-Shāhābād takes off from the river issuing from a narrow defile. Local tradi-
tion asserts the great antiquity of this canal, and no doubt with good reason; for
without it the only portion of Rūdbār which even now, after centuries of invasions
and insecurity, contains a more or less continuous belt of cultivable land, some
25 miles in length, would be a barren scrub-covered waste.

Before leaving Rūdbār I may briefly call attention to a general observation
which presents an antiquarian and geographical interest. It is certainly curious
that the only definitely chalcolithic sites we were able to trace along the Halīl
Rūd, from Takkul to Tump-i-Qalātuk, are to be found on the lowest portion of
the river course. Higher up, the numerous old sites represented by the mounds
from Bijnābād to Hazār-mardī all bear distinct evidence of having been formed
by debris deposits due to prolonged occupation from 'late prehistorical' times
down to the pre-Muhammadan portion of the historical period. Then from