314 PHYSIOGRAPHY OF CENTRAL-ASIAN DESERTS AND OASES. 
The mullahs say their forefathers were Christians, but were conquered by a 
great Mussulman general, Hodja Mussaii Ashari, who came over the Mura Pass 
from Hissar a thousand years ago. 
There are comparatively few abandoned culture-mounds in the mountain 
valley, but many of its oases appear to lie on a considerable thickness of accumu- 
lated débris; in other words, most of the village sites of antiquity there are still 
occupied, whereas most of those on the plains have been abandoned. ‘This differ- 
ence is a good illustration of the characteristic distinctions of high-valley oases, 
type III, especially the difference of water-supply and degree of exposure to hostile 
people. Towns on the plains were from time to time abandoned for lack of water 
as their distributary streams con- 
tracted because of a general pro- 
gressive desiccation of Central 
Asia, and others were destroyed 
by armies that plundered and 
passed on, leaving their ruins to 
the desert. Still others may have 
lost their water to pirating canals 
of other oases. Most of the oases 
of the high valley have always 
had an excess of water-supply, 
their size being limited by topog- 
raphy only, and their inaccessi- 
bility hasalways been a protection 
against invasion; one man can 
guard a trail in the Zerafshan. 
In many of the towns débris 
of occupation has accumulated in 
the form of terraces, in successive 
steps from 4 to 6 feet high, down 
slopes of the old alluvial terraces 
and doubtless extending toadepth 
of several feet below. The thick- 
Fig. 477.—Zerafshan Galcha Spinning at Yarum. ness varies from town to town, 
according to the amount of sediments in the waters drawn upon for irrigation, 
the proportion of stone used in construction, and the time of occupation. The 
few abandoned sites observed are in positions relatively more exposed to neigh- 
boring oases and intersecting routes. Their positions were evidently chosen as 
the easiest to fortify in their neighborhoods, and, in some cases, seem to have 
been abandoned for other points nearby that are agriculturally more advantageous. 
Of abandoned villages there are three of especial interest: One at Iori, one at 
Urmitan, and one at Kadushar (figs. 481-483). 
Iori Kurgan (fig. 481) is an old citadel, about 100 feet by 200 feet long, running 
north and south and resting on gypsum beds rising from the eastern edge of a 

