国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

Tump-i-Kharg upwards the mounds display on their surface definite evidence of
their having been occupied by settlements of the Muhammadan period, and, in the
case of Tump-i-Kharg, by one existing during a considerable length of time with
a fairly dense population.

These observations seem to point to a gradual shift in the position of the
main settlements of the district from the terminal course of the river to ground
higher up where an adequate supply of water could be assured with far greater
certainty. Considering how closely all economic life in this region is bound up
with irrigation, we may well feel inclined to connect that shift with physical
changes which in the course of thousands of years affected the volume of the
Halīl Rūd and thus also the conditions of irrigation dependent on it. But it is
obvious also that no definite conclusion can be drawn from the observations
above indicated until the stratification of particular mounds has been probed
by systematic excavations. Such work alone, moreover, can be expected to
answer the question as to whether prehistoric deposits may not lie deeply
hidden below the level of the present alluvial surface of the ground.

Section iii—THE BASIN OF JĪRUFT

The name of Jīruft is borne by a portion of the Halīl Rūd valley which, owing
to the ample supply of water here carried by the river and the width of the valley
bottom capable of irrigation, must have at all periods been a notable district
within the province of Kermān. The defile through which the Halīl Rūd passes
near Qāsimābād defines the southern limit of a riverine trough which extends in
a northerly direction for about 35 miles to where the river is joined by several
streams descending from the Jabal Bāriz and the high range above Sardūyeh and
Rāyīn. The Halīl river is fed largely by the snows of the high Kōh-i-Lālehzār
south of Kermān and of the neighbouring ranges, and affords here ample facilities
for irrigation. In addition, water is available from qanāts tapping the drainage of
the Khorgatu chain to the west of the valley and of the Jabal Bāriz on the east. It
is hence not surprising to find that Muqaddasī and other early Arab geographers
give much praise to the Jīruft district for the abundance and variety of its pro-
ducts and the manifold amenities of its chief town bearing the same name.¹

Nowadays, after centuries of political insecurity to which the south-eastern
portion of the Kermān province has been exposed from both the Afghān and
Balūch sides, the cultivated area has become greatly reduced. Much fertile land
at the bottom of the valley has turned marshy through disastrous floods of
the river, no longer controlled by embankments. But even so the contrast pre-