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

a well-preserved painted jar, Qas. B. 80 (Pl. XIII), decorated with a broad band
below the neck showing a variety of large geometric designs. It was said to
have been accidentally discovered some four years before at the small ruined
fort of Qāsimābād. The mention of a number of smaller vessels having been
found close together near it pointed to a burial deposit. An excavation made at
the foot of the tower which was indicated as the find-place yielded only a few
fragments of poorly painted pottery of uncertain type besides a piece of ala-
baster, Qas. A. 56, fragments of dark-grey ware, and a large bronze button, Qas.
74, which looked late.

Our next objective was the site known as Chāh Ḥusainī, the westernmost of
those from which specimens of early pottery had reached me at Bampūr. On
March 17th, moving down the small canal which irrigates the fields of the large
hamlet of Sardū, after going about 4½ miles, we were shown a small mound
known as Tump-i-Zabardast. The potsherds found on its surface did not look
old. But occupation of the neighbouring ground in chalcolithic times was proved
when one of the Sardū villagers cultivating near by brought a small painted jar
of pear shape, with a very small base, Ch. S. 04 (Pl. XIX), which he had recently
come upon when clearing a little water channel about a quarter of a mile to the
north of the mound. Excavation at the spot brought to light only some small
fragments of painted ware decorated with coarse geometric designs. Their
chalcolithic origin was confirmed by two other small vessels which were brought
to us and which apparently came from the same find. One was a small
narrow-mouthed jar, Ch. S. 02 (Pl. XV), of grey ware, painted with triangles on
its shoulder and with its echinus-shape corresponding exactly to little jars found
at Shāhī-tump and frequent at Nāl.¹ The other vessel was a conical cup, also
showing a shape common in chalcolithic pottery from Shāhī-tump and elsewhere.

Continuing our march to the north-west we re-entered the wide riverine
jungle belt and reached a small mound known as Bihishtābād, only some 60
yards long and about 10 feet high. Fragments of coarsely painted red ware,
of chalcolithic appearance, lay plentifully on the surface; but the distance from
water would not allow of a halt here. Three miles more had to be covered before
the river-bed was struck. It was here more than 300 yards wide, but held water
only in a small pool under its tamarisk-covered right bank, notwithstanding the
rain-flood which had passed down the river since our first halt at Īrān-shahr.
The sombre landscape curiously recalled to my memory the terminal courses of
rivers in the Tārīm basin before they finally lose themselves in the sandy
wastes of the Taklamakān. About a mile beyond, to the north-west, camp was
pitched at a well visited by nomadic Balūch graziers, and known as Chāh