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

of a legend or tradition to account for it such as has clung since early times to
the Kiz-kurghān, or 'the Princess's Tower', of far-off Sarīkol. The correspond-
ing Turkī designation has its traditional explanation in a story attested already
by Hsüian-tsang.³

Proceeding for another 12 miles along the foot of a rugged hill chain the
large village of Sar-i-āsiāb was reached. From a short distance beyond the
northern edge of its orchards there extends a large area with clusters of burial
cairns scattered over the stony waste descending from the foot of the hills. In
one group counting some eighteen low roughly built-up stone heaps, three
dambs, to use the term applied in Makrān, were opened. In all of them frag-
ments of human bones turned up, and in one also two large earthen pots of
coarse make. Both showed breaks which had occurred in antiquity before they
were deposited with the scanty remains of bodies exposed to birds and beasts.
About 5 miles farther to the north the stony glacis stretching between the
villages of Hut and Chāh Darūt shows another large area of burial cairns. Those
examined in a group to the south-west of the track measured 13 to 14 feet in
diameter with an average height of 2 to 3 feet. All of the four cairns here
cleared contained scanty fragments of bones. In two there was found also a
large jug of poorly levigated clay, about 8 inches high and 5 inches across
where it bulged out above the foot. Both jugs had a spouted mouth with a
handle descending from it along the long neck. The imperfect burning in both
vessels suggested that they were made as funerary furniture and not for
actual use. Here, as in the case of most of such cairns, there was no definite
indication of date. But the great number and extent of similar burial-grounds
noted by the Surveyor in the Zarand and Rafshān tracts makes it obvious that
they belong to the pre-Islamic period or to that immediately following the
Arab conquest, while Zoroastrian creed and practice still retained their hold
on the mass of the population in the Kermān province.

The difficulties about securing adequate transport for our move to the south
proved unexpectedly great. The trouble which it cost to overcome them and
to make other needful practical preparations effectively prevented my gaining
a closer acquaintance with the surroundings of Kermān town, and the physical
conditions determining its importance as a provincial centre. I should have
to regret this more if fairly detailed accounts of Kermān were not available
in the publications of modern visitors, especially of Sir Percy Sykes, who