A Fortnight in N.W. Luristan
sat close by on an overturned saddle, and called to me in a
friendly way to come up too. The man, he said, had been
stealing government cartridges. By this time I had come to
the conclusion that he was not really being hurt, though
calling lustily on one Imam after the other: perhaps privates
are careful how they beat their own sergeants. When the
Sardari had counted forty strokes, the two men got off their
kicking superior, the executioners folded away their lashes,
and the victim himself rose a litde stiffly, but cheerfully, and
saluted as if to suggest that bygones should be bygones.
We now prepared to separate again. I had, as I say, not
found the right sort of skull in Dilfan. What I was looking for,
was one of the graves in which men and horses are said to be
buried together: they belonged to the Bronze Age and were
said to have produced the beautiful bits and chariot trappings
which caused the greatest interest in the Luristan finds of the
last years.
Their date and origin are both unknown: and the very
civilization to which they belong was unsuspected till a few
odd bronzes were brought down by tribesmen to Kermenshah
and roused the attention of archaeologists. Perhaps they
may explain the appearance of the horse in Persia, and may
throw light on the mystery of its arrival there: perhaps they
may prove a link between the pre-Sumerians and their
unknown home. Meanwhile no one can investigate these
problems because no one can stay for any time in that part
of Luristan where the graves are. I had been told that ]
should find them in Alishtar or Khava, but this proved to b<
incorrect: they lie along the valley of the Saidmarreh and it
tributaries, in the country of the Ittivend, who have a peculi
arly bad name among the tribes. The most northern centr
for them is a valley called Sar-i Kashti, on a litde tributar
of the Giza Rud, and a long day's ride from Chavari.
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