Indian Antiquary Vol 39

SR No.: 032531
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 418
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 16 MB

Page 40

34
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[FEBRUARY, 1910.
continued throughout the first century B. C., and probably for the greatest part of its length down to the middle of the second century A. D. But the outlying westernmost section appears to have boen abandoned already earlier. The main purpose of this imes was undoubtedly to safegnard the territory south of the Su-lai-ho River, which was indispensable as a base and passage for the Chinese military forces, political missions, etc., sent to extend and consolidate Chinese power in the Tarim basin. It is equally certain that the enemy who: eruptions from the north had to be warded off were the Asiong-nu, the ancestors of those Huns who some centuries later watered their horses in the Danube and Po. It is an important geographical fact, brought out by the very existence of this defensive line, that the desert hill region north of the Su-lai-ho marshes, now quite impracticable owing to the absence of water, must then still have been passable, at least for small raiding parties.
The very character of the ground through which the fortified frontier-line ran from An-shi westwards, almost all of it already in ancient times a real desert, bad presented exceptionally favourable conditions for the preservation of antiques. Whatever objects had once passed under the protection of a layer of gravel or débris, however this, were practically safe in a soil which had seen but extremely scanty rainfall for the last two thousand years, was far removed from any chance of irrigation or other interference by human agency, and had suffered on its flat surface but rarely even from wind erosion So it was natural enough that the hundreds of inscribed pieces of wood, bamboo, silk, the remains of clothing, furniture and equipment, all the miscellaneous articles of antiquarian interest, which the successive occupants of these desolate posts had left behind as of no value, should have survived practically uninjured. Sometimes a mere scraping on the sarface of what looked like an ordinary gravel slope adjoining the ruined watch-station, sufficed to disclose rubbish heaps in which files of wooden records, thrown out from the office of some military commander before the time of Christ, lay amongst the most perishable materials, straw, bits of clothing, etc., al looking perfectly fresh. The Chinese documents, of which I recovered in the end over two thousand, refer mainly to matters of military administration, often giving exact details as to the strength, movements, etc., of the troops echelonned along the border; their commissariat, equipment, and the like. There are brief official reports and more curious still are private letters addressed to officers full of quaint actualities, family news from their distant homes, etc. The careful study of these miscellaneous records, far older than any which have as yet in original come to light in Central Asia or China, together with that of the actual remains of quarters, furnitures, arms, etc., will suffice to restore an accurate picture of the life led along this most desolate of borders. But in addition to this evidence I recovered very interesting relics of the traffic from the distant west, which once passed along the line guarded by the limes in the form of silk pieces inscribed with Indian Kharoshthi and Brahmi and in a number of letters on paper found carefully fastened, containing writing in an unknown script resembling Aramaic. Are these perhaps in some Iranian tongue, and were they left behind by some early traders from Persia or Western Turkestan coming for the silk of the distant Seres?
The construction of a regular defensive line across 90 extensive a stretch of desert, bare of all resources, must have been a difficult task, and it was interesting to find again and again cvidence of the skill with which the old Chinese engineers had attacked it. Guided by a sharp eye for all topographical features, they had cleverly used the succession of salt marshes and lakes to supplement their line by these natural defencec. For the wall itself they had had recourse to materials which, though of little apparent strength, were particularly adapted to local conditions, and have stood the stress of two thousand years, on the whole, remarkably well. Between layers of stamped gravel, about one foot high each, they interposed carefully secured row of fascines, about as high, made of neatly cat and strongly tied bundles of reeds, which were obtained from the marshes. The salts contained everywhere in the soil and water soon gave to the strange rampart thus constructed a quasi-petrified consistenoy, which in such & region could well hold its own against man ari datare - all forces in fact, but that of slow grinding but almost incessant wind erosion. Again and again I noted in the course of my