Ruins of desert Cathay : personal narrative of explorations in Central Asia and westernmost China . s (Fig. 119, 13, 14), exactly like thecovering tablets of official Kharoshthi documents, affordedspecial satisfaction to my archaeological conscience ; for theChinese writing they bore, evidently addresses, provedclearly that I had been right when years before I conjec-tured a Chinese origin for all the essential technicalfeatures of that ancient wooden stationery first brought tolight at the Niya site. But still more welcome, perhaps, on account of thenew problem it raised, was a small strip of
Ruins of desert Cathay : personal narrative of explorations in Central Asia and westernmost China . s (Fig. 119, 13, 14), exactly like thecovering tablets of official Kharoshthi documents, affordedspecial satisfaction to my archaeological conscience ; for theChinese writing they bore, evidently addresses, provedclearly that I had been right when years before I conjec-tured a Chinese origin for all the essential technicalfeatures of that ancient wooden stationery first brought tolight at the Niya site. But still more welcome, perhaps, on account of thenew problem it raised, was a small strip of paper showingtwo lines in an unknown writing I had never seenbefore. It manifestly ran from right to left, and severalof the characters distantly recalled Aramaic. No de-cipherment could be hoped for from such a the script, with its clearly Western look, forcibly drewmy thoughts to people from ancient Sogdiana or evenmore distant Iranian lands who might have travelled andtraded by this old high road to the country of the silk-weaving Seres. As I put the precious fragment carefully. 119. ANCIENT CHINESE DOCUMENTS ON WOODEN TABLETS, FROM RUINS OF THE NTYA AND LOP-NOR SITES, AND OF THE TUN-HUANG LIMES. Scale, two-thirds. 1, 11, from N. XIV., Niya Site ; 2, 13, 16, from LA. vi., Lop-nor Site ; 3-10, 12, 14, 15, from various watch-stationsof ancient Chinese Limes. Nos. 3, 16 are covers with seal-sockets ; No. 14 is a shaving. CH. XXXIV ABUNDANT CHINESE RECORDS 395 away, I had little inkling of the great find of completeletters in the same script which was waiting for me in aforlorn watch-station at the eastern end of this ancientdesert route. That all these miscellaneous records had found theirway to the large refuse-heap as sweepings from the sur-rounding offices and dwellings, was plainly shown by theplentiful remnants of worn-out articles of clothing andbroken implements which we found mixed up with therefuse. The collection of rags in all kinds of fabrics, fromfine
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1912
