Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1894 — A FIELD FOR EXPLORERS. [ARTICLE]

A FIELD FOR EXPLORERS.

Ruins of Great Cities in Central and Eastern Asia. In Central and Eastern Asia there lies an unexplored region full of interest, and to the archaeologist in especial. A great traveler and clever writer, the Russian General Prjevalsky, speaking of the oasis of Tchertchen, situated in the great table lands hemmed in by the there unbroken wall of the Himalayas, says that close to it are the ruins of two great cities, the oldest of which, according to local tradition, was destroyed 8,000 years ago, and the other by the Mongolians in the tenth century of our era. “The emplacement of the two cities is now covered, owing to the shifting sands and the desert winds, with strange and heterogeneous relics, with broken china and kitchen utensils and human bones. The natives often find copper and gold coins, ingots, diamonds and turquoises, and, what is most remarkable, broken glass. Coffins of some undecaying wood or material are there also, within which beautifully preserved embalmed bodies are found. The male mummies are all enormously tall, powerfully built men, with long, wavy hair. A vault was found with twelve dead men sitting in it. Another time in a separate coffin a young girl was found by us. Her eyes were closed with golden disks, and the jaws held firm by a golden circlet running from under the chin, across the top of the head. Clad in a narrow woollen garment, her bosom was covered with golden stars, her feet being left naked.” To this the lecturer adds that all along the way on the River Tchertchen they heard legends about twenty-three towns buried ages ago by the sands of the desert. The same tradition exists on the Lob-nor and in the oasis of Kerya. Mme. Blavatsky, who was in the earlier part of her life a great and indefatigable traveler, covering more ground in a given time than is usually accomplished by even those of the sterner and more enduring sex, bears witness also to those ancient ruins, which she openly avers are prehistoric ; the pages of her works also make frequent reference to other ruins of ancient character scattered throughout the desert regions of Central Asia. She hints, too, at buried crypts and underground vaults in the desert of Gobi, in particular, in which are stored many of the preserved records of the ages. However this may be, the ruins described are certainly in place awaiting the organized efforts of science to recover for the world a longforgotten page in the history of the peoples of the globe. Or, as in the case of Troy, private enterprise may step in, and continuing the investigations begun by the Russian traveler, read this riddle of a bygone civilization aright. [Pittsburg Dispatch.