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

Of particular interest is the decoration in 91, where a kind of 'fringed fan'
is introduced in a way very common in the funerary war of Khurāb and Dāmīn,7
and also found in chalcolithic pottery from Dārāb sites in the Persis. It is sig-
nificant that this motif was here also, as in the pieces just referred to, used on
the inside of an open bowl.

Owing to the small size of most fragments little can be said otherwise as to
the shapes of the vessels to which they belonged. But 173 evidently formed
part of a thin-walled cup, bulging out towards the bottom, a shape well attested
in chalcolithic ceramic ware from Balūchistān sites. The small fragment 124
(Pl. XXIV) is of interest as its outer surface, decorated with a hachured
pattern, shows distinct burnishing. Of the fragments of worked alabaster it
may suffice to mention that 50 formed part of a fairly large flat-bottomed cup
or bowl, as did also a similar piece (69) of a dark-grey stone. Among the
numerous worked flints, all small blades or borers, 4, 65, 114 (Pl. XXX);
22 (Pl. XXIV), show finger-holds at one end. It remains to be mentioned that
the piece of a whetting-stone with a string hole at its end, 72, and a few small
shapeless fragments of copper or bronze were also picked up on the surface.

The fact that the site is definitely proved by plentiful surface finds to have
been occupied by a settlement of chalcolithic age, invests the dry river-bed
passing close to it on the east with special interest. There can be no doubt on
looking at the map, Sheet II, that this bed must represent either a former branch
or an earlier course of the Lālehzār river, which debouches from the foot-hills
at a point about 4 miles to the south-east. Judging from the width of the bed,
the latter assumption seems more likely. With the exception of a couple of
glazed fragments referred to above, no potsherds or other debris were to be
found to the east of the bed, which suggests that already in ancient times it
had marked the limits of the settlement in that direction.

It is impossible to make sure whether the abandonment of the Tal-i-Iblīs
area to the desert was caused by a shift of the river course or a general diminu-
tion since prehistoric times of the amount of water available in the river for
irrigation. But it deserves to be noted that a plot of ground about 300 yards
in length extending to the southern edge of the debris-marked area showed
signs of having been tilled at a time not very distant, though apparently not
within living memory. The water for this cultivation could have been obtained
only from occasional rain floods or else from the old canal which Muhammad
Ayūb Khān in the course of his previous survey had observed as once carrying
water from the Lālehzār river to the abandoned village of Qal'a-i-Nārp some
11 miles to the south-west of Nigār. Local tradition, as heard by the Surveyor,