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

The area occupied by the ruins of the town, as seen in Plan 17, extends
from a ravine descending to the shore near the Shaikh's fort approximately
as far west as the dry bed of a torrent which carries the drainage of the
high coastal range to the north of the Dōband valley, and thence in the narrow
winding gorge of Kunārak breaks through the bare hill chain overlooking
the rock-cut cemeteries of Shilau to be described farther on. An outlying lime-
stone ridge below the Tang-i-Līr divides the small valley of Shilau from the town
area proper. Where the foot of the ridge descends with an easy slope to the
shore, and the presence of comparatively shallow wells permits of irrigation, the
ground has been partially cleared of the debris of ruined houses and laid out into
fields and scattered small date-palm plantations. At its western edge, near the
mouth of the Kunārak gorge, this portion of the site attains its greatest width
of approximately 600 yards. All over this area, as seen in Fig. 62, the material
furnished by decayed walls, built throughout with unhewn stones and mortar of
gypsum, has been utilized for roughly terracing the slopes wherever cultivation
is made possible by well water. The deposits of ancient refuse contained in the
soil help, no doubt, to make these patches of ground fertile.
The destruction of the buildings that once occupied the whole of the slopes
right up to the crest of the ridge has been so complete that no structural features
can be traced on the surface. Only remains of walls built to support terraces for
houses can be made out here and there (Fig. 76). These are best seen on the
sides of small ravines descending from the ridge, where particularly solid con-
struction was needed. The greater height of the debris heaps lining the southern
edge of the ruined area immediately above the shore suggests that this sea front
was occupied by large and particularly solid buildings.
But the only structural remains traceable here without excavation are those of
what, I think, must have been a quay wall (Fig. 69). They extend for a length
of fully 450 yards, as shown in the plan, and stand in places up to some 15 feet
in height. The outer wall facing is constructed of unhewn stones set with mortar
in regular courses. An interesting feature of this 'sea wall' is the succession of
projections, generally triangular but some also semicircular, which survive for
the greater part of its length. They are too near each other to have served any
defensive purpose apart from strengthening the wall in the fashion of buttresses
against the buffeting of the waves. This explanation is supported by the fact
that when the tide is in, the water approaches to within a few yards of the foot
of the wall, and also by the total absence of indications that the town was pro-
tected by defences anywhere on the land side. Similar triangular projections
were noticed at a small outlying fort to be presently mentioned, and there, too,
only where it faces the sea. Pottery debris of the same type as found all over the