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

sented by Jīruft to the wastes of Rūdbār and its scattered semi-nomadic settle-
ments was very striking. After passing for 8 miles stretches of fair grazing land
by the river's right bank, we reached a practically continuous string of small
villages. Their well-tilled fields extend by the side of groves of fruit-trees and
date-palms all along the foot of an outlier of the Khorgatu range. The combina-
tion of a distinctly hot climate—the thalweg of Jīruft lies at an elevation of only
1,700 to 2,000 feet above sea-level—with adequate water for irrigation permits
of two harvests in the year, and the first was just then proceeding in the wheat-
fields.²

Evidence of early occupation was met first at the mound known as Tump-i-
Ḥusainābād, reached after a march of about 14 miles near the village of Girkōh.
The mound measures some 250 yards in diameter and rises to a height of about
20 feet. Being heavily encrusted with salt efflorescence, but little pottery could
be seen on the surface. The few pieces of painted ware picked up were of the
'late prehistoric' type. A smaller mound close to the north bears on its top
a ruined enclosure built with rough stones and apparently of no great age.

Seen from the village of Āb-i-garm, where we halted for the night, a high
mound near the hamlet of Kunār-sandal to the north-west was a conspicuous
feature in the landscape. Though the direct distance was less than 3 miles, it
took us fully an hour and a half to reach it on the morning of April 12th, owing
to constant detours caused by extensive stretches of cultivation and farther on by
flood-beds and swampy depressions. The mound rises to 48 feet in the centre
and measures 130 yards from north to south. But in continuation of it there
stretches a low debris-strewn terrace to the south-east. The steep slopes of the
mound and its much-fissured top are permeated with shōr, or salt efflorescence,
but in the ravines where erosion is active, much pottery was found exposed.
Most of it was plain ware, red, buff, or whitish in colour of body. But painted
fragments with black geometrical designs on red or grey ground were also
picked up on the surface. Prehistoric occupation was proved also by numerous
pieces of worked flints and fragments of small alabaster vessels.

About a mile to the north-north-west there rises a second mound, close to the
palm-leaf huts of Kunār-sandal and a ziārat of the Twelve Imāms. Its height is
only about 30 feet, but in extent it is much larger than the first mound. All
round the mound (Fig. 45) the much-decayed remains of a rampart could be
traced, forming a continuous line of some 580 yards on the west, north, and east.
On the south the circumvallation has disappeared for a distance of about 200
yards, probably owing to a marshy depression liable to floods passing close