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

spent several years there as British Consul and made full use of his special
opportunities for the study of Kermān's past and present.⁴ There seems good
reason to assume that Kermān has been since ancient times the administra-
tive centre of the province which the classical accounts already know as Kar-
mania and with which it still shares the name. The descriptions given by the
early Arab geographers, especially Muqaddasī, of the capital of the Kermān
province, distinctly support this location, even though they refer to it by the
name of Bardsīr.⁵ This term, meaning 'the cool region', is applied by the early
Muhammadan writers to the whole of the elevated portion of the province,
enjoying a more temperate climate, and not merely in a restricted sense, as at
present, to the broad plateau tract stretching along the northern foot of the
high mountain range culminating in the Chihiltan, Chahār-gumbaz, and Lāleh-
zār peaks.

It was to this plateau that at last by November 6th I could make my start
southwards with transport composed mainly of donkeys, and with a small escort
provided by the military authorities at Kermān. It comprised a dozen conscripts
on foot and four mounted men under Naib Akbar Aḥmad Āmarī, an officer at
one time employed in the South Persian Rifles under Brigadier-General Sir
Percy Sykes. The direction of this initial move was indicated by the report
Surveyor Muḥammad Ayūb Khān had brought me from his previous tour in
Bardsīr of a large mound there known as Tal-i-Iblīs, which, as the specimens
of painted pottery picked up by him unmistakably showed, marked a site of
chalcolithic occupation.

Two marches covering some 46 miles brought us first across the valley
trough of Kermān, partly cultivated, and then through a much broken hill
chain to the cluster of villages known as Mashīz. It is situated on the lower
course of the Lālehzār river and with its land mainly irrigated from numerous
qanāts is the chief oasis of Bardsīr. From its centre, where the residence of
Bahādur-ul-mulk, a wealthy landowner, afforded us hospitable shelter, I pro-
ceeded on November 8th to inspect the extensive debris area known as the
'old town of Mashīz', situated about three-quarters of a mile to the north of
our quarters. It occupies the top of a low terrace, formed, as the examination
of its sides dug down for manuring earth showed, of natural deposits of alluvium.
This terrace stretches for a distance of about 600 yards to the north-west of a
ruined tomb known as Ziārat-i-Pīr Jasūs, and for some 300 yards to the south-