File:Ruins of desert Cathay - personal narrative of explorations in Central Asia and westernmost China (1912) (14780812114).jpg

Identifier: ruinsofdesertcat01stei (find matches)
Title: Ruins of desert Cathay : personal narrative of explorations in Central Asia and westernmost China
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Stein, Aurel, Sir, 1862-1943 Archaeological Survey of India
Subjects:
Publisher: London : Macmillan
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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m definite evidence as to the origin and ageof the settlement ? The uniform roughness of construction in these dwell-ings held out little promise, and their number was embarras-sing at the start. Luckily I had brought with me anadequate posse of labourers, and as soon as the baggagehad been unloaded on a patch of bare clay outside thewest wall, I set them to work at two of the less coarselybuilt structures. The drift sand which filled them did notreach the low roofing made of rough trunks of the wildpoplar, with brushwood and earth above. Yet it hadsufficed to protect the walls, which here consisted ofvertical bundles of reeds faced outside with a layer of mud.The timber framework supporting the whole showed noneof the careful carpentry displayed by all ruins of the Niyasite, but mere unhewn Toghrak posts with other trunkslaid horizontally across the gable ends. The two or threerooms contained in these huts were absolutely bare offittings. There was not even the comfort of a mud-built
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CH. x^vi A DESERTED VILLAGE 305 sitting platform or fireplace, such as poor cultivators housesin the modern oases ordinarily display. When next day we proceeded to clear one after theother of the small * houses built with walls of stamped clayor coarse sun-dried bricks, the experience was repeated.Nowhere did we come upon the remains of furniture orhousehold implements, however humble. Fragments ofbroken pottery, elsewhere the commonest marks of earlieroccupation, were strangely absent. Most curious featureof all, nowhere within or without the ruined dwellings andsheds did we strike any of those accumulations of refuse ordung which in this region invariably adjoin any group ofhabitations tenanted for some length of time, whetherancient or modern. It was clear that we could not hopehere for datable archaeological evidence. But in the endcloser observation of the general conditions prevailinghelped to reveal something about the origin and abandon-ment of this curious site. As already st

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