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

burden and many camels, because they learned that he was taking the route
through the Gedrosians, and conjectured that his army would suffer, as it actually
did. These men therefore arrived very opportunely, as did also their camels
and beasts of burden.'⁵ A look at the map shows that this transport, anyhow
from the side of Sīstān, would have reached Alexander in good time while his
army was still in the Bampūr area.

SECTION II—BY THE LOWER HALĪL RŪD

From Chāh Ḥasan I turned to the south-west in order to reach the Halīl Rūd
at Tumbut, which the local information collected indicated as the lowest per-
manently occupied place on the river. The line followed by our guide took us
first across a grassy plain to graziers' huts near Jamūrī, a conspicuous sandy
ridge, and then into a wide stretch of scrub-covered clayey ground known as
Takkul. Here, at a distance of about 6 miles from Ziārat-i-Mīr Mikdād, I found
a debris area where wind erosion working on the flat surface had exposed plenti-
ful pottery of manifestly chalcolithic type over a space measuring some 440 yards
from north-east to south-west and about half that across where widest. In
addition to superior pinkish-red plain ware, many painted pieces of fine greyish
pottery were to be picked up here, showing geometric patterns in black familiar
from Bampūr sites and Shāhī-tump, as seen in Tak. A. 8, 20, 28 (Pl. XX). Part
of a small cup, Tak. A. 16, has the characteristic small base of chalcolithic ware
of this shape. Fragments of alabaster cups and some worked stones confirmed
the dating.

About a mile to the south-south-west of this area, A, I was shown a second
patch of pottery-strewn ground, B, roughly 300 by 200 yards in extent, rising
to a small ridge about 8 feet high on the south. Here the patterns coarsely
painted in black over ground, varying in colour from pink and purple to whitish
and greenish grey, seemed to suggest a somewhat later make (Tak. B. 52;
Pl. XX). But flint flakes (Tak. 38, B. 55; Pl. XXX) were found here also as well
as fragments of alabaster. At a third debris area, C, visited half a mile to the
south and extending for some 500 yards from north to south and about 300 yards
across, the plentiful painted pottery closely resembled that at B (c. 62, 68,
74; Pl. XX), but included also some pieces painted in two colours (c. 110, 112).
Flint flakes were collected here also.

The evidence, thus secured on the surface, of a fairly extensive prehistoric
settlement having existed on this ground would have induced me to halt at
Takkul for trial excavation. But the escort and baggage had moved ahead from