158 W. T. Blanfovcl — On Ancient Tottery, Sfc. from Bahichistdn. [July, 



valuable and interesting collection also exhibited, concerning which I will read 

 a few extracts from a letter of Major Mockler's, dated 20th April, 1877. 



" I am now sending you a lot of ' rubbish' picked up on my trip, which 

 you can add to the former lot. I opened several more cairns and found 

 some small differences in the mode of sepulture in each locality, also in the 

 shape of the cairns. In my paper* I described the square and oval types ; 

 there is also to the westward a long type, some of the cairns being as much 

 as 50 feet long, but never more than 5 feet in breadth ; in these cairns I 

 found for the first time pots which had been exposed to the action of the 

 fire, so that the dead must have been supplied with cooked food. I examin- 

 ed some of these on the Kohistan hill, near Soorag, and in one found a silver 

 bracelet which had been soldered by lead, and copper arrow heads (which I 

 had found at Tank before) . * * * The two stones from Chidizi I am 

 most anxious to hear your opinion concerning, I take them to be stone 

 hammers, used for what purpose I do not know, but possibly for breaking 

 hard univalve shell fish. I feel sure that they have no connexion with the 

 round grinding stones found in the towns, of which I have put in a couple of 

 specimens. I should also be much obliged if you could find out and let me 

 know whether the fragments of pottery from Balasar have anything like 

 writing upon them. 



" The copper coins from Sadatmand are, I am afraid, undecipherable ; 

 this place is on an almost inaccessible hill about 12 miles from Jashk where 

 there are some very beautiful little cave temples hewn out of the solid rock, 

 pillars, some square, some octagonal, &c., being left at intervals. On some 

 of these pillars there are numerous inscriptions in the Hindi character ; they 

 are probably Buddhist." 



Major Mockler adds copies of some of the inscriptions, which copies 

 I have submitted to Dr. Rajendralala Mitra, who has with his usual kind- 

 ness endeavoured to decipher them, but without complete success. One 

 inscription he has been able to read, it runs rdliadaganasa chaitd (the grave 

 of Rahadagana), but of the others only portions are intelligible. Dr. 

 Riijendralala considers these inscriptions probably 800 or 900 years old. 



Some of the articles recently sent appear to indicate much the same 

 age as those from Damba Koh, the date of which was fairly shewn by the 

 occurrence of a Grreek coin, but others may be of later date. The remains 

 from Sutkagen Dor, comprising numerous flint knives, appear to be older. 

 Much of the pottery from Balasar and some other places is glazed, and 

 several articles of glass, including the remains of well formed bottles, are 

 included in the specimens from the more western localities. 



The marks on the Balasar pottery (fig. 10) look like letters but may 

 be ornament. In one case (fig. 11) they certainly appear purely ornamen- 



* Journ. Roy. As. Soc. 1876, IX, p. 121. 



