XXV111 
Dr. Hoernle— Antiquities from Central Asia. [Extra No. 1, 
Conservation 
of Antiquities. 
lain about 100 miles East of Khotan, which would place it somewhere to 
the north or north-west, of the present town of Kiria. The latter would 
seem to have taken the place of Pima, when it was overwhelmed by the 
sand, just as, according to Hiuen Tsiang’s account, Pima itself took 
the place of the still more ancient town of Ho-lo-lo-kia, which lay 
further north-west. Possibly Ho-lo-lo-kia may have occupied the site of 
the present Dandan Uiliq, which is said to lie 6 marches or about 80 
miles north-east of Khotan. The description of that place, given 
above, would well enough suit a place such as Ho-lo-lo-kia might have 
been. 
The physical conditions of the Takla Makan desert, with the 
extreme dryness of its atmosphere and the 
trifling amount of rainfall, above referred to, 
are very favourable to the conservation, for 
an indefinitely long period, of everything buried under its sands. This 
has been repeatedly observed by travellers ; see, e g., the remarks of 
Dr. Bellew in the Report of a Mission to Yarkand in 1873, p 38, quoted 
by me in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Yol. LXVI, p. 256. 
It has been amply confirmed by Dr. Sven Hedin’s discoveries in Qara 
Dung and elsewhere. That explorer more than once, in his book 
Through Asia, remarks on the fact that “ the dry fine sand of the desert 
unquestionably possesses the property of preserving organic matter 
for a very long time ; see pp. 540, 802, 816 If. There is, therefore, 
nothing intrinsically improbable in the claim of the manuscripts and 
xylographs, contained in the British Collection, to be of a very great 
antiquity. 
One of the places were antiques have been found, Qara Qol Mazar, 
near Guma, is described as “ an immense 
graveyard in ruins, possibly ten miles long,” 
and there is also a Mazar or Muhammadan 
shrine 22 there. It is possible that this place may be the site of one of 
those great Muhammadan defeats which took place at the end of the 
11th and beginning of the 12th century A.D. At that time the fierce 
struggle for mastery took place between the Muhammadans of Kasbgliar 
and the Buddhists of Khotan, which finally established the Muhamma¬ 
dan Faith in Eastern Turkestan. Dr. Bellew, in the Report of a Mission 
to Yarkand, describes several “ vast cemeteries ” in the sandy desert 
marking the sites of the slaughter of Muhammadan warriors. One is at 
Ordain Padshah, about 30 miles east of Yangl Hisar, where there is a 
Ancient graveyards 
and stupas. 
22 A mazar is a shrine and place of pilgrimage, consisting of the tomb of some 
holy person with a kind of mosque built near it. 
