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"
83 distribution of documents and other finds among the watch-towers. As was stated above, only some of the watch-towers had a garrison. In the Chinese document No.617[34] an order is said "to be sent to the commandants of watch-posts and to the company residences. .. ". On the basis of this text we can assume that the Limes was divided into sections and in each section a company was stationed. The companies had their headquarters at a watch-tower each where a system of written administration and an official archive existed. The companies sent smaller detachements on patrol, for signal service and supervision of the traffic to the other watch-towers without permanent garrison. This system explains the abundant occurrence of written documents and debris at some watch-towers and their scantiness or total absence at other watch-posts. The division into sections of the Limes, the number of the companies and the dislocation of their detachments could vary from time to time. The Sogdian 'Ancient Letters' were found atwatch-tower T. XII.a and the circumstances of their discovery are described by Sir Aurel Stein|35] as follows: "Immediately against the south face of the tower was a space about 4 feet wide, which seemed to have been filled up on purpose with broken bricks and loose earth. Next to this came a still narrower passage (marked II in plan), only l'lo' ' wide, enclosed between walls of single bricks and divided by an equally thin partition into two little compartments, each about 11 feet in length. A thick layer of straw and stable refuse covered this passage as well as a little room, measuring only 5 by 6 feet, which adjoined it and the south-west corner of the tower. The passage, as I convinced myself by subsequent inspection, had its walls still standing to a height of over 4 feet. Refuse of all kinds had completely filled the passage, and within it was found embedded the remarkable collection of Early Sogdian documents on paper , T. XII. a. II. 1-8... According to the Naik's statement, which I have every reason to accept as accurate, their position was about 3 feet above the floor. In the refuse below them there turned up three Chinese slips, among them two complete ones, Doc. 607,609. From the little room adjoining westwards came five more Chinese records on wood, also marked T. XII. a. II, among them one, Doc. 593 ... bearing a date which, taken by itself, could safely be read on the spot as corresponding to A. D. 1 ... ". From this description it becomes clear that the Sogdian 'Ancient Letters' were found in a well defined cultural layer of the Han Age which was more than 4 feet thick in the passage where these documents were discovered. On the basis of the Chinese documents found below them and in other finding places of the site, a general outline of the history of the watch-towers T.XII.a and T.XII situated on the same oblong and narrow plateau can be drawn. Surely, the most intensive military occupation of the watch-towers T.XII.a and T.XII fell into the time of Wang Mang, when T.XII.a must for a time have been a company residence. Comparing the Chinese documents Nos. 596, 597, 598, 599 and 587, we can presume that T.XII.a had three stages from the view-point of military occupation during this epoch. At first, the headquarters of the Kuang-hsin company were at Yii-mên and only a detachment of it was stationed at T.XII.a.
