Pottery from a grave
long eyelashes while I turned over in my hands two pots and a
bronze spear-head from the grave.
These were obviously very ancient, and people who are good
at dating such objects have since told me that they probably
belonged to somewhere about 1500 B.C., and that they are
similar to other objects found near the south-west corner of the
Caspian. The two pots were made of grey earthenware,
with a decoration of lines and small circles scratched upon them,
and very good in shape. The spear-head was bronze, the tip
broken off, probably for ritualistic purposes: it had been found
lying on the breast of the skeleton, while the pottery stood at
its head* Other graves, they said, might probably be found
in the same place—the valley of Rashak we had passed the day
before, some way from where it opens into the plain. There
was no getting them to dig, however, as the laws on this point
have become very stringent in Persia.
An hour or so went over the bargaining, interspersed with
glasses of tea. When the two principals appeared to reach a
deadlock, friends and retainers took up the controversy and
set the negotiations going again. I finally parted with two
tomans (45.), and a procession formed to carry the objects in
triumph to my room.
After this I managed to escape and was allowed to wander
through that most delightful of villages whose houses are all
embowered in walnut and firuit trees, and whose main street
is but a narrow earth track beside the rippling loveliness of
the river. Blotches of sunlight filtered through shade almost as
green as the leafy canopies that caused it; agreenluxuriance flung
itself over the fences of the little gardens; and the bright colours
and many beads and bangles which the Kurdish women love
made them to look as gay as butterflies against their whitewashed
walls, where they sat spinning on benches built to run along the
outside of the houses, in the manner of old Italian palaces*