É. Apor (ed.): Jubilee Volume of the Oriental Collection, 1951–1976. Papers Presented on the Occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Oriental Collection of the Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
J. HARMATTA: Sir Aurel Stein and the Date of the Sogdian "Ancient Letters"
78 On the basis of Table I we can state that there exists no contrast between the two documents, containing the dates 137 A.D. and 153 A. D. , and the group of all other documents concerning their chronological evidence and the chronological gap between them as it was supposed by Ilaloun and Henning. At first, it must be stressed that we have evidence (= dated document) for altogether 54 years (even if we include some doubtful cases) from the 303 ones between 98 B. C. and 205 A.D., i.e. for only 17,8 % of the whole space of time. Then we can state that we have only one evidence for 39 years, i.e. 72 % of the 54 evidenced ones and two evidences for 13 years, i.e. 24 % of the total. It follows that 82,2 % of the years from 98 B.C. to 205 B.C. are not attested by dated Chinese documents at all and 96, 2 % of the indicated 54 years are only evidenced by one — in a few cases by two — documents. Lastly, as regards the chronological gaps, the relevant data are as follows: the gap of 51 years occurs one time and also the gaps of 25, 21, 20, 17, 15, 14, 12, 9, 7, 5 years occur one time each. That means that 11 chronological gaps span 196 years, i.e. the average length of these gaps is 17,8 years. Besides, 25 short gaps span 53 years, the average being 2,1 years. These data prevent us from devaluating the testimony of the Chinese documents dated from 137 A.D. and 153 A.D. respectively. The overwhelming majority (72, 2 % ) of the years evidenced between 98 B. C. and 205 B. C. are only attested by one dated document. It seldom occurs that these documents form coherent chronological series as Henning believed [25] and even in these few cases the series are very short; we find only 3 series consisting of at least 3 successive years: 96-95-94 B.C., 65-64-63 B.C., and 61-60-59-58-57-56 B.C. On the contrary, the 54 attested years are as a rule separated from each other by longer chronological gaps spanning on the average about 18 years in 11 cases, and by shorter gaps of two years on the average in 25 cases. Accordingly, the two discussed documents fit well into the system of occurrence and chronology of the dated Chinese documents found on the Tun-huang Limes and from historical view-point their testimony cannot be devaluated or neglected. Table II Sites/Finding Places! 26] Dates[ 27] T.IV.b.II T. V T. VI.b T.VI.b.II T.VI.b.I 94 B.C. 39 B.C. 63 B.C. 65 B.C. , 63 B.C. ,61 B.C 60 B.C. ,59 B.C. ,58 B.C. 58 or 54 B.C., 57 B.C. , 56 B.C. ,34 B.C. 68 B.C. ,65 B.C. (?) • »
