AXCIEXT SITES. 
II 
during historic times. Situated in the heart of the ver>- fertile oasis of the Zerafshan 
River, it lies also on the most open and easiest caravan routes connecting China and 
eastern Turkestan with Afghanistan, India, and Persia. 
Samarkand has, e\-en within the past two thousand \ears, been sacked, 
destroyed, and rebuilt man\- times. Like Mer\-, its rebuildings have often been on 
adjoining sites, and the determining of the whole area covered by these various sites 
remains to be made. There is evidence that it is ver>- extensive. The most ancient 
seems to be the plateau or "tell" called "Afrosiab," to which tradition assigns the 
site of the vSamarkand Maracanda of Alexander the Great. This is a plateau of 
"made earth," the dclms of niins, standing on the "loess" plain. It is covered 
to a great extent with .M(^hannnedan cemeteries, with some traces of Mussulman 
Fig. 6.— Plateau o( Accumulated Debns of Occupation m Ghraur Kala. 
occupation, and with fragments of potter\- and of bricks. The loess plain is deeply 
dissected b}' a stream, and several gullies have been cut in both the plateau of the 
ruins and the loess. It is difficidt to distingiiish between the "made earth" of the 
plateau and the underlying "loe.ss," except through the presence of fragments of 
pottery, charcoal, and bones. 
We found such fragments down to a depth of about 40 feet below the general 
surface, in the gullies, and it is not improbable that the thickness of debris is still 
greater. Abo\c this general surface rises the citadel mound to an additional height 
of 30 to 40 feet, or 170 feet abo\-e the stream at its base. Judging from the excel- 
lent topographical map of Afrosiab, of the general staff, the loess plain lies about 50 
feet above the stream. This would make it possible that the citadel mound repre- 
sents an accumidation of over 100 feet of debris. The surface of the rest of Afrosiab 
is vers- irregular. While in general it ranges from 100 to 140 feet above the stream, 
