File:Ruins of desert Cathay - personal narrative of explorations in Central Asia and westernmost China (1912) (14782818842).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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ycovered with drift sand. So it was with an eased consciencethat I once more pitched my camp by its side. A rapidinspection assured me that the remains of the little templein the centre, which had then disclosed interesting manu-script relics and a Chinese sgraffito inscription of someimportance, had not suffered in the interval. Then I hurried outside to where, only a quarter ofa mile to the south, Sadak declared he had found theKharoshthi tablet which he had shown me at Imam JafarsMazar. The ground there was covered with conicalhillocks of sand bearing tamarisk dead or living, erodedbanks of bare clay showing up between them. The spotto which Sadak took me without any hesitation looked likeone of these terraces, only lower. But on approachingclosely I recognized that what rose a few feet above theeasy sand slope was not a mere witness, but a solid massof rubbish with the broken brick walls of a small houseemerging through it. This unpretending ruin had probably been laid bare by 310
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CH. XXVII RUIN NEAR ENDERE FORT 311 a slight movement in the adjoining dunes since my first visitto the site, and Sadak knew that some treasure-seekersfrom Niya had been attracted to it a few years later. Butthey had contented themselves with digging holes hereand there, and had left the refuse thus extracted lyingclose by. I had scarcely begun to examine it when,amidst plentiful fragments of pottery, rags of felt and coarsefabrics, and clods of stable refuse, I came upon a smallpiece of wood bearing traces of Kharoshthi characters. Sothe men were set promptly to work, and most of the ruinwas cleared before nightfall. On the top there was a thicklayer of stable refuse and straw, extending uniformly overthe remains of brick walls, only about three feet high, andover the debris which filled the two rooms clearly traceablebetween them. From their floor and that of an adjoiningapartment, which erosion had almost completely destroyed,I recovered, besides several fragmentary Kharoshthi reco

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