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"
74 cording to which the 'Ancient Letters' are to be dated between 105 A.D. and 137-153 A.D. Besides, he wanted to refute this theory, ascribed erroneously to Sir Aurel Stein, even by archaeological arguments, placed as his disposal by G. Haloun. Unfortunately, Henning had no acquaintance either with archaeological methodology or with the archaeological finds of the Tun-huang Limes. Thus happened that the essence of the argumentation expounded by Sir Aurel Stein fully escaped his attention. Moreover, he supposed that the 'Ancient Letters' were found together with about seven hundred Chinese documents. [ 5] Accordingly, he believed that the main argument used by Stein for a date between 105 A.D. and 137/153 A.D. was the joint occurrence of the 'Ancient Letters' and the dated Chinese documents. Now, Haloun composed a table [6] for him which shows that while 78 Chinese documents are dated between 98 B.C. and 39 B.C. and 30 pieces between 1 A.D. and 94 A.D. , it is only one document which dates back to 137 A.D. and another doubtful one dated from 153 A.D. On the basis of these data Henning stressed that it is perilous "to argue that the Sogdian Letters must belong to a year in which occupation of the site is attested by the presence of a Chinese document" because "Chinese paper documents, too, some (three) from the second (?) century, but most of them (eleven) from T'ang times, probably the eight century, were found in the same area". [7] The archaeological facts are, however, the followings. The Tun-huang Limes represents a fortification system the extent of which is more than 70 miles. [8] Behind the wall rose a chain of watch-towers. The distance of these from each other varied between 3/4 of a mile and 4 1/2 miles. The overwhelming majority of the finds unearthed by Sir Aurel Stein came to light exactly in the ruins of buildings adjoining to the watch-towers and in refuse-heaps situated in or around them. That means that we have to do not with one but with many archaeological sites on the Tun-huang Limes inasmuch as each watch-tower represents a separate site lying often at a distance of 3-4 miles from the other one. On the basis of a thorough study of the archaeological finds and the Chinese documents found at the separate sites, Sir Aurel Stein succeeded in elucidating the historical fate of several watch-towers. Each of them had its own individual fate: they were built at different times as the construction of the Limes advanced westwards; they were used for various purposes, garrisoned or abandoned and reoccupied again at several epochs. It is impossible, therefore, to say that the Sogdian 'Ancient Letters' "were found together with a large number (about seven hundred) of Chinese documents" because this is the total number of the Chinese documents found along the Tun-huang Limes (708 published by E.Chavannes to which 62 published later by H.Maspero can be added) in at least 31 sites. We must take, however, into consideration that the finds came to light on several places within one and the same site. Thus the 770 documents belong to 67 finding places. This was the case also at watch-tower T.XII.a, the finding place of the 'Ancient Letters' where finds were made at several places. Accordingly, the Sogdian 'Ancient Letters' were found together with only two complete Chinese slips (documents Nos. 607, 609) and a fragmentary one[ 9] , i.e. instead of about seven hundred Chinese documents with only
