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"
84 Later on, the headquarters of this company were transferred to the watch-tower T.XII.a. In the third stage, the Kuang-hsin company was followed by the Hsienming company, who had been stationed formerly at Yii-mên. At the same time a detachment of the latter company was in charge of the signal service at watchtower T.XII. Being stationed formerly at Yii-mên, the same company had a detachment at watch-tower T. VHI. These three stages can clearly be distinguished but their sequence cannot be established with certainty; it might even have been in the inverse order. The dislocation at the watch-towers or the concentration in Yii-mên of the companies obviously depended on strategic necessities. In any case, watch-tower T.XII was subordinated to T.XII.a being a company residence at that time. Neither the Chinese documents nor the other finds discovered in the dustbin Т.ХП.а.Н furnish any basis for the assumption that T.XII.a would have had a permanent garrison already during the Former Han Dynasty. Signal service or supervision of the traffic were probably managed by small patrols and guards sent to these watch-towers from time to time. Thus the rise of the dustbin T.XII.a.II can be connected in all probability with the epoch of Wang Mang. The Chinese documents of this period were thrown away at the time when the permanent garrisons of the watch-towers west of T.XIV were withdrawn to Yii-mên in the thirties or forties of the 1st century A.D. After this event, however, a rather long period must have been passed before the Sógdian 'Ancient Letters' were thrown on the refuse. They were found 3 feet above the floor and about 1 foot below the surface of the dustbin. This stratigraphie position would seem to indicate a point in time towards the end of the Han Age. Thus a further question arises: what could have been the function of the watch-tower T.XII.a after the withdrawal of the permanent garrison? There exists some evidence (mainly documents) which suggests that the watch-towers T. VI. c, T.XI, T.XII.a and T.XII were kept in use even after the abandoning of the military occupation of the western part of the Tun-huang Limes. This can be explained by the topographic position of the watch-towers listed above. As Sir Aurel Stein pointed out! 36] , the watch-tower T.XI lying a day' s march from T.XV.a and being the last station where drinkable water was obtainable on the route westwards, offered a convenient intermediate halting-place. Similarly, according to his description] 37] , the watch-tower T.VI.c occupied "an ideal position on the flat top of a small and completely isolated clay terrace. This rises as a conspicuous landmark to a hight of fully 150 feet above the surrounding low ground Its top completely overlooks the great basin ...". Lastly, as regards the watch-tower T.XII, Sir Aurel Stein drew attention to the fact that" a post maintained at T.XII was excellently placed for guarding the ancient route and watching the traffic passing along it ... The purpose of T.XII was to serve as a road-side post for what I may call the police control of the border as distinct from its millitary defence ... In the same way a preliminary watch could be kept here upon travellers, etc. coming from the Western Regions the system of 'double check' here assumed could be paralleled ... by plentiful earlier historical evidence ...".[38]
