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

emporium, the site of which we were bound for. Thither our baggage had moved
ahead, while the examination of the remains just described detained me. Follow-
ing it in the dark, we passed the hamlet of Parak. Finally, after having covered a
total distance of 28 miles, we arrived at the wretched fishing village of Tāhirī,
and, passing it, were able to pitch our camp on an old walled-up terrace below
the fortified mansion of Shaikh Ḥāṭim, the local chief (Fig. 60).

Section iii—THE SITE OF SĪRĀF

Immediately to the west of Tāhirī village there stretch for a distance of fully
a mile and a half (see Plan 17) the remains of the town of Sīrāf. From the
accounts of Arab geographers Sīrāf has long been known to have been the chief
centre during the early Muhammadan period for the maritime trade of the
regions adjacent to the Persian Gulf with India and the Far East. The location
of Sīrāf at the ruined site of Tāhirī was first recognized by Captain Kempthorne
of the Indian Navy.¹ It is fully borne out by the descriptions, more or less de-
tailed, to be found in the works of writers who knew the town from the time of
its great prosperity down to that of its rapid decay after the destruction caused
by a great earthquake about A.D. 977. As a full and lucid synopsis of these
accounts is readily accessible in Sir Arnold Wilson's Persian Gulf, and as accu-
rate modern translations of the essential ones have been given in Professor P.
Schwarz's work often quoted before,² it may suffice here to reproduce those
details which have a direct antiquarian or topographical bearing.

Sulaimān the Merchant (about the middle of the ninth century A.D.) already
knew Sīrāf as the port where the Chinese ships trading to the Gulf took in their
cargo.³ Iṣṭakhrī describes Sīrāf as a town 'almost as large as Shīrāz. For the
building of houses teak wood and wood from Zanj (Zanzibar) is used; they have
several stories. The town lies on the sea coast, is very closely built and very
populous.' He refers to the extravagant sums spent by merchants on their
houses. 'There are neither gardens nor woods in the vicinity. The fruit and the
best drinking water is brought to the town from the mountain of Jamm which
lies above the town and is the highest point in the neighbourhood and like the
hills of the cold region. But Sīrāf is the hottest town in the country.' Elsewhere
he describes 'Sīrāf as the chief port of Persia. It is a big town in which only
houses are to be seen until one gets over the hill overlooking the town. There
is no iced water, no cornfield, no milk, and yet it is the richest town of Persia.'