PART I

THE SURVEY

THE 1959 PRELIMINARY VISIT TO PAKISTAN

Before formulating a precise proposal to the government of Pakistan for an
exploration license, it was necessary for me to visit Pakistan to see the major ancient
sites -specially Mohenjo Daro-and to make the acquaintance of the officials in
the government Department of Archaeology.

My initial visit to Pakistan was made during October 1959. During the
summer I had been working with the University Museum's excavations at Hasanlu in
Iranian Azerbaijan. On October 15, I boarded a propellor-driven Super Constellation
for the flight to Karachi. Just over a half hour after leaving Tehran, the number 3
engine caught fire and the flight was aborted. We were treated to a first-class
dinner and a fine room for the night in Tehran. At 8:30 the next morning we took off
again for Karachi with an estimated flight time of only four hours and twenty
minutes.

We had a close view of beautiful snow-capped Mt. Damavand (18,605 feet)
as we ascended eastwards from Tehran. Then the scenery changed abruptly when we
turned south and crossed over the notorious salt deserts of Central Iran-the Dasht-i-
Kavir and the Dasht-i-Lut; both absolutely barren, sandy plains interrupted
irregularly by high, jagged rock outcrops. Turning east then into Pakistan, we crossed
over the southern Baluchistan mountains; barren and rugged with innumerable traces
of seasonal riverbeds and torrent beds-all dry.

As we approached Karachi, we passed over the inhospitable terrain of
Sonmiani Bay with its miles of marshes and salt flats. The scenery made me feel
unusually apprehensive about our proposed coastal survey. It was one thing to study
maps and read travel accounts but to actually get an overview of the topography was
a bit of a shock. Little did I realize as I stared wide-eyed at the bare, rocky hills
and mountains of upturned red, green, and white rocks, that I would be spending much
of the next thirty years exploring and excavating in them.

My travels in the Near East during the previous two years and an earlier
year spent in northern China did not prepare me emotionally for South Asia. Twelve
years after the turmoil and atrocities resulting from the partition of Pakistan from
India, my first impressions of Karachi were that of an urban refugee camp: vast
areas of temporary housing, makeshift government offices, wooden crates for desks in
many offices, and -an extremely low level of poverty that was crushing the people.

My budget was minimal and I sought out an ancient hotel, the Central Hotel,
across the street from the "first-class" Metropole Hotel. Even there I could afford
only the cheapest room which turned out to be an eight by ten foot "cell" at the end of
the alley next to the main building. A naked, fly-specked bulb lit the dirt-streaked,
whitewashed walls, the small cot, and single chair. An electric ceiling fan stirred
about the flies and mosquitoes. Adjacent to the room was a tiny wash/toilet room
equipped with one of those insidious pull-chain British toilets operable only by
those whose lineage dates back at least to the time of Queen Victoria. But, a room

Explorations on the Makran Coast

with three meals per day for the equivalent of $3.78 a day was nothing to complain
about. I had only $35.00 left in my pockets. Fortunately, the $1,000 promised by the
University Museum was awaiting me at American Express the next day.

The first night in my hotel room a tall, thin-faced young Pakistani man came
to see me. He offered his services as guide and travel consultant. Zaki Dawood
proved to be a valued friend who not only assisted me in many practical matters of
getting around in a strange new country but who introduced me to many of the post-
Partition social problems of Karachi. He took me through the refugee settlements on
the eastern side of the city. I was told that after Partition in 1947 and the flood of
immigrants coming from India, the U.S. government started supplying aluminum pre-
fabricated houses that were supposed to be made available at no charge to the
refugees. But, as soon as the pre-fabs arrived, local officials got hold of them and put
them up for rent-rent that the refugees could not afford. The racket was detected
and the shipments of pre-fabs were stopped. The Pakistan government had to do
something immediately so it started erecting cement block "family units" in huge
development projects (40,000 units in one project alone). A "family unit" consisted of a
walled-in area with dimensions of about 20 by 35 feet. This area contained one room
measuring about 8 by 12 feet, calculated to be sufficient as the living, sleeping, and
dining space for the average family of six persons. A 3 by 5 foot kitchen with no
equipment, a 2 by 3 foot washroom, and a tiny, Turkish-style toilet cubicle were also
included. Those units rented for 12 rupees ($2.50) a month and had no gas, electricity,
or sewers.

After seeing those refugee communities, my miserable hotel room wasn't so
bad after all. But it was not great either. When I awoke in the morning after a fitful
sleep in stifling heat, I found myself covered with insect bites-even the palms of my
hands and the soles of my feet. But one adapts.

Everything changed quickly for the better as I met more people. I was
especially encouraged by my reception at the Department of Archaeology. The
director-general, Dr. F. A. Khan, was friendly and cooperative and expressed
considerable interest in our proposed coastal survey. He arranged for me to travel to
Mohenjo Daro and Harappa, the two principal sites of the Indus civilization, and to
meet persons who might have useful information concerning the logistics of planning
a coastal survey. Through the department, and also through persons at the American
embassy, I developed a list of essential people to contact. Those included the British
archaeologist Beatrice de Cardi of London who had done extensive surveying in
mainland southern Baluchistan; Henry Field of the Peabody Museum, Harvard, who
had conducted an anthropological survey of parts of southern Baluchistan in 1955;
Robert L. Raikes, a British hydrologist-cum-archaeologist who had made extensive
surveys for water sources and ancient sites in Baluchistan; Walter A. Fairservis, then
with the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who was the first
American anthropologist/archaeologist to explore Afghanistan and Pakistani
Baluchistan after the end of World War II; Rodman Snead, a geographer who had
visited the Makran coast in 1957 and again in 1959 to study the unusual mud
volcanoes found in the coastal region; Lowell Thomas, Jr. who had flown along the
Makran coast in a small, single-engine plane as part of his round-the-world venture;
and most importantly of all, Sir Mortimer Wheeler who had been director-general of
the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) just prior to and throughout the initial
tumultuous years associated with Partition. He then became archaeological advisor

to the newly formed government of Pakistan in 1949-50.

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The Survey          9

After discussing with Dr. Khan the bureaucratic procedures that had to be
taken to obtain an archaeological license, I departed from Karachi with all the
naive enthusiasm expected of someone about to embark on his first independent
archaeological project. The next months in Philadelphia were spent contacting the
persons mentioned above and in working on problems of logistics, supplies, and
equipment.

Responses to my requests for information and advice were enthusiastic and
encouraging. The most practical information came from Beatrice de Cardi who
described in detail the procedures for selecting, hiring, and loading camels. Camels
and small boats were the only transportation we could plan on for the survey, the
local availability of which it was impossible to assure in advance. Plans and
financing were finalized, and the official request for a permit was submitted to the
Pakistan government in July 1960. The venture was to be sponsored by the University
Museum and subsidized by a generous private contribution. The expedition team
consisted of myself as director, T. Cuyler Young, Jr. (then a fellow graduate student at
the University of Pennsylvania) as assistant field director, and my wife, Barbara, as
secretary and field assistant.  We knew that there would be an official
representative from the Department of Archaeology assigned to our group and that
we would have to hire a cook to accompany us.

A steady flow of letters back and forth between Karachi and Philadelphia
kept us assured that our project was being favorably considered, but we found that the
actual license would not be issued until we arrived in Pakistan.

THE 1960 SURVEY

After arranging for the care of our two small daughters, Barbara and I left
the States on August 19. An eight-hour flight, cramped into an SAS DC-8, took us
from Idlewild Airport to Copenhagen where we spent two fine days visiting
museums, castles, and places of other delights. Then to Egypt for a week's tour of
archaeological sites and time to get acclimated to desert conditions. (Article in
Cairo newspaper-500 people have died of cholera: the epidemic has "swept across
West Pakistan.")

Thursday, September 1

The KLM Electra departed Cairo at 2:35 P.M. for a three-hour flight to
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, where there was a brief layover in a crumbling, old airport
lounge. An ultra modern one was under construction. The flight from there to Karachi
took only three and a quarter hours.
Friday, September 2

We arrived in Karachi at 7:30 A.M. From 5:30 A.M. on we had been able to
make out the coastline of Iran and Pakistan. It was hazy and cloudy, but we could see
enough, even from 20,000 feet, to increase our anxieties about this first of our own
field expeditions.

We checked in at the same Central Hotel where I had stayed the previous
year, but this time took a proper room on the second floor. The double room with
private bath and full pension cost 50 rupees per day (ca. $11.13). Although our room
was large, had high ceilings, and was quite cool, the hotel itself was eerie. We

Explorations on the Makran Coast

seemed to be the only guests. The entrance hall and main desk occupied the space of a
large closet. The manager was a tall, thin, shoulders-back, chin-up stereotype of a
Teutonic demigod, complete with saber scar across his cheek. He was unsmiling, but
put on at least a facade of graciousness. We could not help but speculate where he
had been and what he had been doing in the 1940s.

Certainly hotel managing was not among his past meritorious endeavors.
Take for example the dining room. The commodious room, with natural light only
from the windows along its northern side, was more like an abandoned stage set for
some nostalgic movie. The empty bandstand, the spacious dance floor surrounded by
booths on elevated platforms, the strands of faded multicolored crepe paper drooping
dustily from the chandeliers; it was as if after some glorious celebration, the
boisterous crowds had left in the early morning hours and the doors were locked, not
to be reopened until we arrived decades later.

But on to business. First we had to register with the police and then the U.S.
embassy which was still located in Karachi; later it moved north to the new capital
city of Islamabad. I renewed my acquaintance from the previous year with Robert
Caldwell, the labor attache who acted as the unofficial "archaeology
representative." He had been an invaluable source of information concerning
procedures for obtaining permits and generally getting familiar with the "system" in
Pakistan. He introduced me to Hal Lucius who was to replace him the following
week when Caldwell would be transferred out of Pakistan.

An important item of business was our request for permission to purchase food
from the Commissary and field rations from the U.S. military. Initial prospects for
neither looked very promising.
Saturday, September 3

I went to the Department of Archaeology to meet with the Director-General
Dr. F. A. Khan. As in the previous year, he received me cordially and expressed
great interest in our proposed survey. He, and the department, had little direct
information about the coast except for the brief visit made by Henry Field in 1955.
His enthusiasm was tempered by his warnings of the difficulties and uncertainties
inherent in such a venture.

There were several basic matters of business requiring attention: first, the
formalities involved in obtaining an import permit for our expedition equipment that
was coming air freight from Philadelphia. Dr. Khan's assistant, Muhammad
Siddique, promised to handle the formalities and get the shipment through the
Customs. A more serious problem was that of arranging transportation to and in
Makran. Siddique had contacted the major shipping companies and learned that
none of them were scheduling trips along the coast until October 15 because of the
unusually rough monsoon seas: also travel restrictions had been imposed to help stem
the cholera epidemic that was rampant in Pakistan. The third item of business was
to obtain the final approval for the survey from the Pakistan government. The
request that had been submitted by the University Museum in July was still under
consideration. Dr. Khan assured me that it would be approved, but he would not be
specific about what it would allow us to do.

The transportation problem was more serious than we had anticipated. Our
original plan to start the survey by going by boat to Gwadar and then hiring camels,
or a vehicle if available, to go directly to Sutkagen Dor seemed out of the question at
that point. As an alternative, we discussed the possibility of going the entire way by
land. That would require driving through Las Bela to the Kej Valley. From there

10

The Survey          21

the decision would have to be made either to continue by vehicle all the way down
the Dasht Valley to Jiwani or to switch to camels and make our way to the coast to
Ormara. That would reverse the intended direction of the survey, but it might
provide an advantage. By the time we finished work at Sutkagen Dor, we hoped
that the coastal ships would be back in operation and we could return to Karachi
directly from Jiwani. But the harsh reality was that we had no vehicle, and
inquiries had not come up with any prospects of hiring a suitable vehicle in Karachi.
Monday, September 5

I met with Caldwell at the embassy. He gave me names of everyone he could
think of who might be able to assist us with goods, services, or information. But as
for obtaining food supplies from the Commissary, he admitted that our chances were
not promising.

Tuesday, September 6

Our request to make a limited number of small test excavations at Sutkagen
Dor was reviewed favorably by Dr. Khan. He was not willing, however, to give
permission to make test excavations at other sites we might encounter. He said there
has been too much "trial trenching" in Pakistan by foreign missions with no
substantial follow up. As for helping us arrange transportation, he phoned directors
of various other government departments to inquire about roads, ships, etc., including
the shipping master in charge of regulating all commercial coastal shipping, but
with no practical solutions. In addition, Siddique phoned the British India shipping
company again. They told him that normally they began coastal operations about
September 15, but their main office in Bombay had instructed them to suspend
services for an indefinite time-perhaps as long as two months-because of the
cholera epidemic. So, the transportation problem persisted.

Mr. and Mrs. Caldwell hosted an elegant lunch at the Sind Club for us to meet
some prominent figures in the American and Pakistani communities. The club,
directly opposite the American embassy, is a physical vestige of some of the best and
the worst of the British colonial era. The large sprawling sandstone structure,
fronted by exquisitely beautiful gardens, was a haven for members of the British and
foreign elite. Still visible in 1960, on the outside of the stone gateway into the
property, was the outline of where the original sign was posted announcing that
"INDIANS AND DOGS ARE NOT ALLOWED."

Among those present were the director of archaeology, Dr. Khan; Mrs. Ethel-
Jane Bunting, wife of the deputy director of ICA; and Dr. and Mrs. Habib. She was
involved in developing the Pakistani handicrafts industry by using ancient art
motifs, such as those found on Harappan seals, on woodblock prints for textiles.

After lunch, Caldwell took me on a tour of the embassy to meet persons who
might be of assistance to us in obtaining, at least, emergency food supplies, and
advice on transportation. But all our inquiries received a common noncommittal
reply. For example, the asst. naval attache told us that he would check on ships for
us, but he was not enthusiastically optimistic; a major in Air Force MAAG said that
there was a possibility he could locate some in-flight rations, but he also was not
optimistic; a captain in Air Force MAAG informed us that there are "no extra rations
available at the moment but if something turns up he will notify Mr. Lucius"; the
second secretary, and political officer, of the embassy expressed considerable interest
in our proposed expedition. He said that he had been trying to arrange a trip of his
own along the coast but had been "discouraged"; the air attache-just running out to

Explorations on the Makran Coast

meet a plane-suggested unenthusiastically that they might be able to arrange a
flight to get us out to Jiwani in a couple of weeks, but?? I learned, subsequently, that
he and the political officer had been to Jiwani just three days earlier. They reported
that it was a fairly large fishing town and that there was a severe water shortage
due to lack of rain. They had seen a limited number of animals and very little forage
for them. I also met an officer in the Economic Section, Ed Kemp, who had been to
Ormara by ship and had photographs of the area. And lastly, I was approached by
Army Captain Frank K-, an "Area Specialist" in the office of the embassy's
political officer, who asked to accompany us on the survey (which he did). We
heard, unofficially, that all the interest in the coast was related to U.S. government
plans to develop seaports for possible military purposes.

I then went to a few automobile dealers to see about renting a vehicle and
hiring a driver. I was astonished to hear from one dealer after another that they
did not hire out vehicles and didn't know a driver who would agree to make the trip
anyway.

Wednesday, September 7

Barbara and I went to the Sind Club in the late afternoon to meet Robert L.
Raikes and his wife Janet. Bobbie, as he preferred to be called, was a professional
hydrologist with extensive field experience throughout East Africa, the Near East,
and South Asia. Currently he was serving as a consultant to the Pakistan
government's Public Work Department and Irrigation Department. Much of his
hydrological fieldwork had been done by camel or on foot, and he had developed an
acute sense of the delicate relationships between water sources and human
habitations. This led him logically to an interest in archaeology to provide time
depth to his research on modern water sources and usages. During his journeys he had
discovered many archaeological sites in Baluchistan, some of which were later
excavated with important results (Raikes 1968).

Raikes was in bed with the French doors of their ground floor apartment
opened wide to provide a splendid view of the gardens that he loved so much. His
wife, Janet, was a nurse with extensive experience in the Sudan where she and Bobbie
had met. She had to spend a considerable amount of loving time caring for Bobbie's
aches and pains, especially the back pains that had him in bed when we met him.
But pain or not, he was leaving the next morning for an eight day exploration, by
camel, of the area north of Las Bela along the eastern edge of southern Baluchistan.

As proved to be "de rigueur" for every meeting with Bobbie over the next
thirty years, we began with one of his distinguished Pink Gins. We discussed the
problems of transportation to Makran. He suggested the possibility of our group
meeting him at Liari, south of Las Bela, where he would arrange for camels to take
us on to Makran. We could then proceed south and westward along the coast
together. He was anxious to visit the region himself. Riding camels in Baluchistan
could be hired for 150 rupees per month (about $30.00) and pack camels for 120 rupees
(about $25.00)-well within our budget possibilities. It was an exciting prospect but
unfortunately, as we were to experience many times during the coming years, the best
thought out plans often did not result in action.
Thursday, September 8

I went to the offices of the Department of Archaeology to meet with
Siddique concerning our air express shipment from Philadelphia. Notice of its
arrival had not yet been received so we sent a telegram to the University Museum to

12

The Survey            13

remind them of our schedule. While at the Department of Archaeology offices, I was
introduced to Mohammad Rafique Mughal, a junior officer in the department, who
was to be our representative on the survey. He was very pleasant and intelligent and
eager to help. We set a time to have him introduce us to the local bazaars and assist
us in making purchases for the survey.

In the afternoon I went to the embassy. Caldwell had four boxes of "In-
Flight Rations" for us-all that he could wrangle from the Air Force attache. Hal
Lucius informed me that at least some of the coastal shipping companies had decided
to resume operations beginning on September 17, but nothing was certain. I then
talked with Captain K- who had expressed the desire to join us on the survey. He
took me to his boss, an Air Force colonel, who said he would consider the request. We
never did understand just why the captain was interested in seeing the coast under
such primitive travel conditions when the military had numerous planes and ships
in the area. I urged the colonel to decide as soon as possible because I would have to
obtain permission from the Department of Archaeology to include the captain in our
group.

Saturday, September 10

Barbara checked with PAN AM concerning the shipment of our equipment
from Philadelphia. Fortunately, it had just arrived and was in Customs at the
airport. It was too late in the day to obtain the official clearance papers, so that
business would have to wait until the coming Monday.

We went on our first tour of the old bazaars with Mr. Mughal. He led us
through a maze of noisy, people-jammed alleys lined with a myriad of open-faced
shops displaying every imaginable type of product: brightly dyed silks and cottons;
metal, wood, and plastic utensils; dazzling displays of gold and silver jewelry; and
clothing that included quite inhuman pre-shaped brassieres. In other areas of the
huge bazaar district we visited metalworking shops where we placed an order for a
dozen hand-picks to be made for our excavations. We also placed orders for bamboo
poles, reed mats, and numerous other items that Mughal recommended for the
journey. We were surprised at just how much was available in the local bazaars and
how inexpensive things were. We could have saved considerable money on some of
the items we had air freighted from Philadelphia.

In contrast to the opulence of the bazaar shops, however, rationing of some
critical items was still imposed by the government. Of direct concern to us was the
strict rationing of cotton cloth. We needed a considerable quantity for our pottery
sherd bags. It was necessary to make a written request to the government through the
Department of Archaeology. We ordered a couple bolts of dark bluish-grey cotton
cloth. It was called "militia cloth," because it was the material used for the summer
uniforms of the para-militia personnel. Once approved and purchased, we handed
over the bolts to the tailor who worked for the Department of Archaeology, and he
made sherd bags with string closures for us.
Sunday, September 11

We met with Captain K- at the embassy. He had received official
embassy permission to go with us, but I had to also obtain Pakistani approval. He
said he planned to accompany us for the first two weeks and then would return to
Karachi by boat. He said he had a line on some army C-Rations, but this proved to
be a hollow promise.

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Monday, September 12

The first business was to obtain an import permit for our air freight shipment.
Mr. Mughal was very helpful in that tedious procedure.

Barbara and I went to the home of Ed Kemp (embassy economic officer) for
dinner and to see his pictures of Ormara. He had been there in May of last year with
an American team investigating the possibility of making Ormara a secondary
seaport as an alternative to Karachi. It sounded pretty unrealistic to me. As far as
we had been able to learn, the geography around Ormara was not at all conducive to
road building. But, in a few weeks, we would see for ourselves.

I received a letter from Cuyler Young stating that he could not leave Tehran
until the 28th or 29th. This would push our departure time later than planned and
would put unwanted time pressure on the survey itself. Both Cuyler and I had firm
commitments in the States in early December, so we had no flexibility for extending
the final date of the survey.
Tuesday, September 13

Thinking I had all the necessary papers, I went to the airport to collect my
air freight. After more than an hour of delays, I was informed that the government
paper in my possession was only an Entry Permit. I was sent back to town to get a
Customs Duty Exemption Certificate. I soon found myself hopelessly entangled in
bureaucratic cobwebs and the victim of petty clerks and peons who knew absolutely
nothing about the matter at hand or where I should go to get untangled. I had no
recourse but to start from scratch, and I returned to the first office I had visited early
that morning. There, after being told that I was just shy of being an idiot, I was
instructed to go directly to the collector of Customs and to ignore anyone of lesser
importance. The gentleman who so informed me kindly telephoned the collector and
explained the situation. The collector agreed to see me the next morning.

We had dinner at the home of Dr. and Mrs. Sherman A. Minton. He was a
professor of microbiology at the Institute of Basic Medical Research in Karachi. His
avocation was that of naturalist and zoologist with a specialty in reptiles (Minton
1962; Minton and Minton 1969). He has traveled extensively throughout Baluchistan
and Sind to collect reptiles for the American Museum of Natural History in New
York. Just outside the living room, on a covered porch, he had a small zoo with such
charming creatures as a seven-and-a-half-foot python and numerous other non-
poisonous snakes of the region. In a bottle-thank goodness-was a pickled saw-
scaled viper (Echis carinatus), an exceedingly dangerous little creature common to
this area. He also had a pet pangolin, or scaly anteater, that rolled itself up into a
tight, armor-plated ball when approached by almost anything larger than itself.
At other times it plodded slowly around the yard dragging its heavy tail and
smelling quite awful.

It was important for us to meet people like the Mintons. They were
invaluable sources of information on what we might expect to encounter during our
survey. Also, they could provide fun and diversion to relieve the bureaucratic
anxieties we were experiencing. For example, we were invited to accompany them on
an overnight camping trip up the Hab River (northwest of Karachi), ostensibly to see
a recently discovered archaeological site, but really to help them look for crocodiles
(see September 17).

14

The Survey           15

Wednesday, September 14

I went to the embassy first thing in the morning in response to a call from Hal
Lucius. He was arranging for me to meet with a man in Karachi University's
Department of Geography who wrote a dissertation on the fishing industry of the
Makran coast a few years ago. A meeting was set up at the university on September
19.

Then I headed back to the Customs House to meet with the chief collector. It
took several hours, but it seemed that we had gotten from him the crucial document.
However, a "guarantee" still had to be obtained from the U.S. embassy. So I hurried
back to the embassy and made a sworn statement that we would use the imported
items solely for the purposes of the expedition. They promised that the document
would be ready for me to pick up the next morning. Then, rather puzzlingly, they
told me that all I would have to do would be to go to the airport tomorrow and all
doors would be opened.

At the embassy, I also got the final word on our chances of obtaining some
military rations for the survey. I could purchase 5-in-1 rations for $4.50 each. That
was far too expensive for us. We decided to rely on locally available food staples
and hope that we could purchase fresh supplies en route.
Thursday, September 15

As promised, the guarantee document was ready for me at the embassy.
What a document it was, complete with a large red embassy seal and red ribbons. I
hastened to the airport, document in hand and feeling rather pleased with myself
that I had finally worked through the proper procedures. But immediately upon
presenting the document to the assistant collector, to whom I had talked only two
days before, I was berated for not having initially checked with him about
procedures. In effect, I wasted two days according to him. However, the embassy
"dazzler" proved to be the key to opening eyes, if not doors. Next, I had to hire a
clearing agent for thirty rupees. This was money well spent. Without him, I would
have been stuck in Customs for another week.

After all this procedural hassle, the final charge to retrieve my shipment
was only 61 rupees ($12.80). Before taking the two boxes from the airport, however, I
had to unpack them both and check off each item against the inventory list. That
accomplished, I took the boxes to the Department of Archaeology's storeroom to
await final packing for our trip. The shipment included collapsible, metal-frame
cots, sleeping bags, tents, camp cooking outfits, and an inflatable rubber raft. The raft
was intended for possible use along the coast to reach places where boats or camels
might not be able to reach.
Friday, September 16

We checked with the Department of Archaeology, but our permission for the
survey had not yet been received from the ministry. So, we did more shopping before
going to the Buntings' house for lunch. They graciously invited us to stay at their
house from the 25th until we could set off on the survey. Then we had afternoon tea
with the Raikeses. We were disappointed to hear that Bobbie had not had an
opportunity to contact the deputy commissioner at Las Bela concerning our proposed
land route through his district to Makran. So that travel alternative is virtually
dead. Nonetheless, we did have useful talks about other practical matters not the
least of which was that they were having their cook search for someone to cook for us

Explorations on the Makran Coast

during the survey. That demanded a very special type of man, and we welcomed the
help.

Saturday, September 17

At six A.M. Barbara and I arrived at the Mintons' house for breakfast before
setting out on our overnight archaeological and reptile searching expedition. We
drove north from Karachi for about eighteen kilometers to the village of Mangho
Pir. Named for the thirteenth-century saint, the village had a shrine to the saint as
well as two hot sulphur springs guarded by crocodiles.

Like most such places there are conflicting stories about its origin. One
tradition (Shaw 1989) says that when the saint came from Arabia in the thirteenth
century, he inadvertently brought crocodiles with him in the form of head lice. Soon
after his arrival, two oases sprang up from the desert with hot springs gushing out
from a clump of date palms. The crocodiles jumped in and have lived there ever
since.

Another tradition, related by Richard F. Burton in his fascinating mid-
nineteenth century book on Sind (1851) says that a great pilgrim turned a flower into
an alligator, "whose descendants still wallow in the mire of the marshy pool."
Whenever a man had a desire that he thought Heaven might be induced to grant, he
could go to the pool, kill a goat, and offer the flesh to the reptile. If it ate the flesh,
the votary could feel assured that his wish would be granted.

Whatever the tradition, the fact is that the reptiles are of a snub-nosed
variety that is unlike the long-snouted gavial common to the Indus. The shrine and
the hot springs are popular with pilgrims who go seeking blessings and cures,
particularly for rheumatism, skin diseases, and leprosy. If nothing else, the warm
pools provide free baths for the throngs of children who are taken there by their
parents. I wonder if there has ever been an archaeological study made of such
pilgrimage places. They are so important culturally and the spoken traditions are so
inconsistent. But, perhaps they should continue that way.

We continued driving northwest to cross the Hab (or Hub) River at Band
Murad where the blacktop road ended. When we reached Hinidan, we crossed again
to the east side of the Hab. The water there was above the jeep's running boards. We
continued northwards to Dureji where there was a small police post. The only other
persons we had seen were small groups of Baluchi nomads who lived in the region in
temporary shelters during the winter months. From Dureji on we encountered
difficulties following the track which crossed numerous nalas (streams). Another
fifteen miles got us to Diwani where we crossed a large riverbed whose water-when
there was any-fed into the Hab. Seven miles north of there the track passed right
through the ancient site of Diwani that had been discovered by Minton and the
American archaeologist Walter A. Fairservis (Fairservis 1961, 1967, 1975).

Diwani is about 300 to 400 yards from north to south, extends about 300 yards
to the west from the base of the mountain (Khirthar Range), and rises to some 15 to 20
feet at most above the flood plain. Its surface is severely eroded, but there are clear
remains of stone foundations (30 inches wide). Rooms are about 10 x 15 feet in area.
There is a narrow passageway between two buildings and what appears to be a flight
of steps (?). The site is covered with sherds, some Islamic, a Scytho-Parthian-like
spout, and abundant painted sherds that belong clearly to the prehistoric Nal culture
of southern Baluchistan (early third millennium B.C.). We found two clay animal
figurines, one of which is of a humped bull.

16

The Survey          17

Behind the site in a narrow gap through the mountain are the well-
preserved remains of about half of what seems to be a dam constructed of local stones.
The wall stands 10 to 15 feet above the streambed. Behind this dam a narrow valley
stretches back into the mountains for about five miles. It is marked on our old British
map of the region as a marshy area. It would be interesting to explore the area
sometime.

Along the track as we drove south from Diwani, we saw numerous stone tombs
of the Chaukundi type that are well known from the huge fifteenth-sixteenth
century Islamic cemetery twenty-seven kilometers east of Karachi. More than a
hundred graveyards with Chaukundi-style tombs have been identified in Sind and
along the Makran coast. Later, we discovered an otherwise unknown group at Ras
Malan in Makran.

The temperature was uncomfortably high all day, and all of us suffered from
it. We drove back to Diwani in the late afternoon and set up camp. Water in the
river was unusually low for this time of the year because the summer monsoon failed
to bring sufficient rain to the mountains. We searched for crocodiles but found none.
After a simple supper, and nightfall, Minton and I went reptile hunting (or rather he
went reptile hunting, and I was coerced into accompanying him!). We walked a good
four miles along the banks of the river using flashlights, but to my selfish delight we
saw nothing but frogs. The day before, while driving up here, we had seen scads of
lizards (geckos). Most were small, spiny-tailed ones about ten inches long that
Minton claimed are edible. Also, we had spotted several formidable Desert Monitor
lizards (Varanus griseus), those primordial, cantankerous creatures that grow to be
about four and a half feet long. We had an exceptional experience which even
Minton had not had before, of watching one of these creatures, unperturbed by our
proximity, digging a hole just three feet from the side of the track. We were assured
by Minton that we would encounter these creatures in Makran.

We inflated our air mattresses and turned in at 10 P.M. under the open sky. A
strong convection wind was blowing, but about 10:30 it stopped. It was replaced by
swarms of mosquitoes that pestered us through a long and restless night.
Sunday, September 18

Most of the day was spent exploring for archaeological sites and looking for
reptiles. No significant discoveries were made in either category, but Barbara and I
returned to Karachi satisfied that we had had a valuable introduction to at least
part of Baluchistan and the varieties of geographic and other conditions that we
could expect to encounter in Makran.
Monday, September 19

The government permit for the survey still had not arrived. Since the
Department of Archaeology hasn't been able to shake it loose, I resorted to our
embassy for assistance. Hal Lucius took me to the Karachi office of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs where we learned that our permit was tied up in the Ministry of
Education. As soon as 'Education' approved it, it would be sent to 'Foreign Affairs',
and finally to the Department of Archaeology. My file at Foreign Affairs started in
July with the letter Caldwell had sent to them on our behalf. They had no record of
the original request that we had sent through the Pakistan embassy in Washington,
nor was there any record of the Department of Archaeology having notified them of
our project.

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Part of the problem had to do with larger problems the government was
having with shifting the capital. The move from Karachi to the newly constructed
capital of Islamabad in northern Pakistan just north of Rawalpindi was creating
havoc. Official files were either still in Karachi or in temporary holding in
Rawalpindi or in packing crates in the new capital. The best procedure was to pursue
any lead you might get and hope that your own files would be found. Hence, we went
to the Ministry of Education and met with a Mr. S. M. Ali. He was the first person in
the ministries to actually do something for us on the spot. He called in the man in
charge of our file in Karachi and immediately phoned Rawalpindi to talk with the
minister of education himself. Phone service being what it was-you had to "book" a
long distance call even within Pakistan. The procedure could take hours. We left
the ministry to await a call from Mr. Ali. Several hours later he phoned me at the
hotel to let me know that the minister hoped to have the permit cleared in one or
two days.

We were temporarily stalemated. Barbara and I decided to stay in the hotel
room for the remainder of the afternoon to escape the oppressive heat. Our rest was
interrupted by a knock at the door. The room boy announced that two men were
asking to talk with me. Two husky Baluchi men wearing soiled, baggy pants, loose-
fitting, western-style suit jackets, open sandals, and voluminous, green-checkered
turbans came into the room. They had heard that we were looking for transportation
and offered to drive us in their truck to Liari. Liari is not much more than a crossroad
junction on the western side of Sonmiani Bay, at the eastern fringe of the Makran
coastal mountains. They made a modest request for what must be a difficult trip-
only 125 rupees ($26.00) plus gas and oil. We did not accept this offer on the spot.
What would we do after being unloaded at such a remote spot? We would have to try
to make arrangements for other transport to take us into Makran proper from Liari-
but through whom?

Hal Lucius phoned to give me the name of the manager of Tidewater Oil, one
of the American companies searching for oil along the coast. I phoned the manager,
Scotty Mitchell, who informed me that they have men travelling regularly between
Panjgur (in the Kej Valley in northern Makran) and Pasni and Jiwani, two of the
coastal communities we planned to visit. Twice a month they had a ship go to Pasni
with supplies. They also flew their own plane four times a week to Panjgur. This
sounded just like what we needed. I made an appointment to meet with him
Wednesday morning.

We had dinner at the home of the Luciuses. Ikramme Rohman, head of the
Department of Geography at Urdu College, was there also. He gave me a copy of a
dissertation completed in 1956 by Dr. Mohammad Ismail Siddiqi, head of the
Geography Department at Karachi University. The dissertation, "Fishermen's
Settlements of the Coast of West Pakistan" should be useful. Rohman said he would
arrange for me to meet Siddiqi. The resident manager of Hunt Oil, Tony Petullo, was
also present. This was one of several American companies exploring for oil along the
coast. He was later to show me aerial photographs of parts of the coast.
Tuesday, September 20

Mughal accompanied me to meet with the deputy director of Central
Fisheries who had been stationed at Pasni for seven years and claimed to know the
coast well. He was exceptionally cooperative and offered every bit of help possible.
But first he needed a letter from the Department of Archaeology stating our mission.
He would then telegraph the authorities in Pasni to reserve room in the Rest House

is

The Survey          19

and to make a jeep available for us. He phoned several shipping companies and
found one called Muslim Navigation Company whose manager said they could take
us to the coast. Mughal went to check into this immediately after we left the
Fisheries office. This was the first positive breakthrough concerning basic
transportation for the survey.
Wednesday, September 21

I went for my appointment with Scotty Mitchell, manager of Tidewater Oil.
The company offices were unexpectedly modest-just a few rooms in a rented house.
Mitchell was an affable and cheerful chap, not unlike most of the oil and construction
people we met in Pakistan, and later in Afghanistan. We discussed various subjects:
travel, availability of local supplies, etc. along the coast.  Their area for
exploration was the Kej Valley in southern Baluchistan, mainly around Panjgur. He
had driven from Panjgur to Pasni, through the coastal mountain range. It was, he
said, an arduous, full-day trip in a four-wheel-drive vehicle. He said it was also
possible to drive from Panjgur to Ormara, but that it was even more tedious and
difficult. On the other hand, the drive from Panjgur, west along the Kej Valley and
then south down the Dasht Valley to Jiwani, was relatively easy. That was of
special interest to me because it was in the Dasht Valley that our major
archaeological objective was located-the site of Sutkagen Dor.

Mitchell showed me air photos of the entire Makran coast (from the
Canadian Colombo Plan survey of most of Pakistan). The scale was one inch to four
miles. He arranged for their geologist to make the photos available to me for study.
We then discussed various aspects of the physical nature of the coast. His opinion
was that the coast is still geologically very active, that the coastline has risen
considerably, and that Ormara and Gwadar were islands that are now connected to
the mainland by sandy stretches, tombolos, formed by coastal currents. As for Ras
Malan, he had flown over it many times and had observed that the terrain was
exceedingly rugged. He could discern only two practical approaches to the top of the
rock massif: either from the west, by going north of the first range of coastal
mountains and then ascending the Ras up the more gentle, northern side, or by going
up the rugged river valley that empties into the sea about midway along the cape. A
few weeks later we would experience for ourselves just how difficult that part of the^
coast is.

Mitchell also phoned Tony Petullo at Hunt International Petroleum
Company, whom we had met at Luciuses' a few nights before. He arranged for me to
go to Petullo's office the next morning to look at his large-scale blowups of the same
air photos shown to us by Mitchell.

When I returned to the hotel there was a message from Mughal at the
Department of Archaeology. He had contacted the Muslim Navigation Company
and was assured by the manager that we could get passage on one of their boats
around the first of the month. We discussed this on the phone and quickly decided to
take this option and get on with it. I picked him up in a taxi, and we went in search
of the company office to finalize the arrangements.

And search it was. After more than an hour of driving and walking through
the winding, mostly unpaved streets and alleys of one of the poorer parts of north
Karachi, we found the office. It struck me immediately upon seeing the shabby
facade of the office that we must be a bit insane to even think of entrusting our lives
to a company with so little pride in its business office. But immediately upon
entering the dimly lit single room we found ourselves in a most friendly and

Explorations on the Makran Coast

apparently efficient atmosphere. We described to the manager the formidable
quantity of baggage and equipment we would have with us. "No problem," he said,
and we would have the "First Class" accommodations-a single private cabin.
October 1 was set as the tentative date for our departure from Karachi-their first
voyage of the season.

In the evening, two men came to the hotel to apply for the job of expedition
cook. One was a rather chubby, cheerful chap who had worked for various foreign
families in Karachi and claimed expertise in both Western and Pakistani cooking.
But all his experience had been in urban kitchens. When we described the probable
conditions he would be travelling and cooking under, the enthusiasm drained from
his face. He conjured up some rather feeble excuses why, after all, he probably would
not be able to go. All the better. He would have been a disaster in the field.

The second man, Noor Muhammad, impressed us positively after just a brief
interview: a tall, thin, fragile-looking man with very dark skin. He had a face
wrinkled like that of an apple-doll you see at American country fairs and powerful
hands with beautifully long fingers. He had traveled widely having been a cook-
bearer in the British army both in China and Egypt during the Second World War.
He was used to field conditions and had no reservations about going with us.
Barbara, who would have to work most directly with him, approved of him
enthusiastically. He agreed to a salary of 120 rupees ($25.00) per month plus
expenses. Imagine!

Thursday, September 22

I spent all morning at the Tidewater Oil office studying the air photos of the
coast (scale 1/2 inch = 1 mile). It was illegal to make copies of them, so sketches and
memory would have to do. Comparing them with the topography on our old British
Survey maps and our Air Force Approach Maps was extremely helpful at the desk
top level. The 1:1 scale realities in the field proved to be something quite different.

At the hotel, a telegram from Cuyler Young was awaiting me saying he
would arrive from Tehran late on October 1. I cabled back immediately to inform
him that we had reservations on the boat to leave Karachi on October 1 and that he
should get here a couple of days before that if possible.
Friday, September 23

Hal Lucius took Barbara and me, along with Mr. Rohman, a geographer at
Urdu College, to Karachi University to meet with Dr. Siddiqi. I had read the
dissertation on Makran fisheries that he did for Keil University in Germany, and we
were anxious to learn more about his practical experiences along the coast.
Unfortunately, it proved to be an almost painful interview. He talked vociferously
and, every time we asked him a specific question, pompously referred us to his book.
Much talk, but little of substance, or even of interest, said.

The afternoon proved to be much more productive. Through Mr. Reinemund at
ICA in the embassy, I contacted Dr. Habibur Rahman of the Geological Survey of
Pakistan. He invited me to his office across from the old colonial Palace Hotel. He
had just received copies of the new topographic and geological maps based on the
Canadian Colombo Plan aerial surveys. Not only was I allowed to see them, I
purchased two complete sets of them. Not long afterwards, their sale was restricted.
They proved to be valuable during the survey as far as gross topographical features
were concerned and were a welcome supplement to our other maps.

20

The Survey           21

Saturday, September 24

I spent most of the morning with Dr. Khan at the Department of
Archaeology. He booked a call to the Deputy Minister of Education in Rawalpindi
concerning the status of our permit and promised to contact me as soon as he had any
new information.

Noor came to the hotel in a horse-drawn carriage to take Barbara to one of
the marvelous living monuments that has survived from the British period-the
huge food emporium in the center of town called Empress Market. When she
returned, after making purchases for the expedition, she described her experience
like this:

Noor was dressed in starched, white cotton trousers that reached just
above his ankles, showing well-worn, black polished shoes and no socks. His
shirt was also of starched cotton and hung at an odd angle from, what
appeared to me to be, very thin shoulders. A big smile showed that he was
ready to take on the job with gusto.

The carriage took us to the street opposite the market where the driver
explained that to take us to the front steps would be too slow and tedious for
the price that Noor and he had agreed on. The wide street was filled with
carriages, camel and donkey carts with dangerously high loa'ds, three-wheeled
motor scooters ("rickshaws") that whizzed in and out of what seemed to be
impossibly small spaces, city buses, and private cars, all alternately lunging
forward and stopping abruptly to the accompaniment of incessant horn
blowing. I was unsure that all this was such a good idea.

In the midst of this confusion stood a traffic island. It was just large
enough for one police officer, clad in an immaculate white uniform complete
with white gloves and an alarmingly loud whistle. His job was to keep a
continuous flow of traffic moving in time with his precise arm movements and
whistle blasts, with no hesitation from one direction to another. A pedestrian
had to coordinate his adventure to the other side of the street in tune with the
movements of the officer.

After crossing the street safely, I oriented my vision to the steps leading
into the market. There was an instant mob of boys with baskets clamoring to
lead us to the food stalls and carry our purchases. I picked Abdullah, not
because he was more neat, clean, or tidy than the others, or because he spoke
some English, but because he was first to approach us and liberated us almost
instantly from the boyish swarm. (He was to be our carrier for many years to
come. Even after being away from Karachi for months, he would somehow
learn when we were coming to the market. Some sort of primitive but
extremely efficient communication system connected the hotels, taxi drivers,
and market).

As I entered the market, I was shocked to see what I thought were
extremely unsanitary conditions. Food was displayed openly for all to handle,
and swarms of flies were everywhere. Shopkeepers made rather bored
gestures with fly whisks to disperse them, but they only transferred the
nuisances temporarily from one spot to another. Scruffy cats and mangy dogs
slithered just out of human contact but close enough to grab any dropped or
cast-off food. Buckets of questionable water were placed in convenient spots
for the shopkeepers to use to sprinkle their produce. Bare-bottomed babies
toddled close by their mothers who sat daily at the entrances to the galleries
weaving baskets or making string. They greeted shoppers with words of
advice as to where to shop, or asked for rupees to supplement their meager
earnings.

22

Explorations on the Makran Coast

It was like stepping into a carnival: waist-high platforms with pyramidal
piles of fruits and vegetables, or whatever that particular stall was offering.
And in the midst of all the color and din, one person at each stall ruled over
the cash box and made all the calculations of what I purchased from him.
Some shops displayed old photographs of the fathers and families of the
current merchants showing that the family business had been conducted in
Empress Market for years-perhaps generations.

There was usually one helper at each stall who scurried about weighing
my purchase or ducking under the platform to bring out additional produce
for me to see. My purchases were given to Abdullah who immediately
arranged and rearranged the items to accommodate as many as possible in
his baskets.

Along with all the din was the wonderful aroma of fresh spices, or of a
freshly peeled orange that a merchant had thrust in front of my face to
sample. There was stiff competition among the merchants to demonstrate
the quality of their products. For example, the coconut vendor would slam a
large knife into a coconut just to show me how fresh it was.

Noor and Abdullah were marvelous at sniffing out the freshest and top
quality fruits and vegetables, and the best varieties of rice and spices. Bulk
items such as rice, flour, and sugar were ladled from huge burlap bags.
Already-ground spices were stored in large glass jars that had probably been
used for that purpose for generations. Whole spices laid on counters in heaps
for shoppers to handle and pick over.

Noor insisted that we take half a dozen live chickens with us on the
expedition. He picked out six which he had poked and squeezed and
declared fit for travel. He took them home with him to fatten them up for the
journey.

In the main quadrangle of the market, the man-made household items
were displayed, again in colorful arrangements on shelves or hanging from
poles. I had only to point to what I wanted and instantly other shopkeepers
would attempt to get my attention to look at their products. I then had to
bargain with the competing shopkeepers. They were skilled and experienced
at this game, and I had to learn fast how to select the best quality for the best
price.

After shopping, while Abdullah and I waited at the entrance for Noor who
had gone to hire a carriage, I wondered at the amazing mass of commodities
that I had just seen in that decaying structure. The Victorian Gothic market,
designed as a roofless quadrangle with four galleries off the open center, was
built in the 1880s. It was obvious that no renovations had been made over
those many decades-only the squeezing in of as many more stalls as
possible.

That was the first visit to the Empress Market, visits that would be
repeated so many times over the next thirty years.

Sunday, September 25

Barbara and I moved from the hotel to the Buntings' home, one of those
excessively large, rambling houses with marble floors, whitewashed walls and
ceilings, and a bevy of servants that is the stereotype of houses inhabited by much of
the foreign community in Pakistani cities. What a delightful, and supportive
prelude to our coastal adventure.

The Survey          23

Monday, September 26

A call from Dr. Khan's office informed me that the approval for our survey
had been communicated to the department from Rawalpindi. I went immediately to
his office where I spent several anxious hours waiting for the bureaucratic wheels to
grind out the actual document. Finally, at one-o'clock we signed the contract. We
had official status at last. The license was brief, and the terms about what we had
expected. The one disappointing clause pertained to the excavation of test pits at
sites. It restricted us to one small excavation per site. This in itself was not
unreasonable for newly discovered sites, but we had specific plans to reinvestigate
the large site of Sutkagen Dor. One small test pit would certainly not be adequate,
but we would have to make the best of it.

All we needed then were Cuyler and the ship. We checked with Muslim
Navigation Company again. Their departure date was still uncertain-sometime
between the 28th and October 2 depending on when the ship arrived from its starting
port of Bombay.

Tuesday, September 27

A telegram arrived from Cuyler-he would arrive on the 28th or 29th. The
navigation company phoned to tell me that the ship was definitely scheduled for
departure from Karachi at 2 P.M. on Saturday, October 1.
Wednesday, September 28

Cuyler arrived on the morning flight from Tehran full of news about the
discoveries made by the University Museum's excavations at the Iron Age site of
Hasanlu in Iranian Azerbaijan.

The Buntings put on a fancy luncheon at their home. In part it was to
welcome the visit of a Mrs. Sherwood whose husband was head of World Bank in
New Delhi, but it was also given as a send-off for us as we prepared to depart on our
first independent archaeological explorations.

Ethel-Jane Bunting, our hostess, must have gotten some vicarious pleasure
from giving us that send-off. She was a remarkable woman who upon arriving in
Pakistan in 1958 with her husband Frederick, deputy director of the U.S. Operations
Mission (ICA), immersed herself in studying the cultural and artistic traditions in
Sind. She worked closely with the Department of Archaeology and was invited by
the director-general to redecorate the Indus Valley Hall in the National Museum
which was then housed in Frere Hall, the magnificent Victorian Venetian-Gothic
structure that graces the park across from the American embassy. She was an avid
recorder of the ornate Islamic stone tombs found throughout Sind, taking photographs
and making rubbings of the carved decorations. There was no place too remote for her
to go in her search for unrecorded monuments. Also, she collected textiles and
published a beautiful little book (1980) showing the similarities between textile
patterns and the patterns on the centuries-old tombs.

In addition to the guest of honor, Mrs. Sherwood, Janet and Bobbie Raikes
were present; also Mrs. Shereen Nana, wife of the prominent Karachi judge and
patron of the arts, Feroz Nana; Mrs. William Hall, wife of the deputy chief of the
U.S. embassy; and other distinguished persons with cultural and artistic interests.
That evening we went to the Mintons' for an early dinner before I went over to talk to
Sherman's Boy Scout troop about archaeology. The Mintons' also gave us some bottles
of solutions and hardware for preserving any reptiles we might capture.

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Thursday, September 29

The entire day was spent packing for our journey and collecting the various
items we had ordered in the bazaars. That proved to be a nerve jangling, but also
comical, experience. Mughal and I first had to face the problem of how to transport
the bulky items to the dock. Large trucks were prohibited from the parts of town
that we would have to traverse. What I thought was a difficult, even insuperable
problem, didn't phase Mughal. We went to the transport bazaar in the old city and
hired a camel cart-an open-bedded contraption that rolled on old bald balloon tires
pulled by a characteristically nasty-tempered camel.

We made the rounds of the various bazaars and picked up loads of bamboo
poles, picks, hoe-like digging implements, shovels, baskets, plastic buckets, reed
mats, tinned metal trucks, and cloth bags for the pottery we expected to collect during
the survey. This proved to be a formidable load that slowed the pace of the camel
even more than its normal plod. For over two hours we disrupted traffic in the
business districts of Karachi. Horns blew, invectives were shouted at us by frustrated
motorists, and policemen threatened, ineffectually, to arrest us. Mughal and I sat
haughtily atop the loaded cart as the camel driver yelled and beat the beast with a
stick in vain efforts to quicken its pace. Eventually, we reached the harbor and put
the items into temporary storage until time for boarding the boat.
Friday, September 30

First thing in the morning, Mughal and I went to the Muslim Navigation
Company office to purchase our tickets for passage on their C.C. ("Country Craft")
Mujahid. The price was right: 30 rupees each for Cabin Class, 20 rupees for space on
the open deck. We still had not seen the boat and were running on blind faith.
Departure time was still set for 2 P.M. the next day.
Saturday October 1

Mughal, Cuyler, and I went to the Fisheries Department at 10:00 to see Dr.
Agha Hussein again. He gave me a letter of introduction to the Fisheries
representative in Pasni (there was no representative in Gwadar) and sent a telegram
to the Gwadar Rest House to alert them to our pending arrival.

At noon we all assembled on the dock next to the Mujahid ("Warrior"), the
wooden boat that was to take us to Gwadar (plate 2). Unbeknownst to us, the manager
of the shipping company had arranged for us to arrive earlier than usual for
departing so that we could load our goods and supplies before the arrival of the main
group of Pakistani passengers. First, we went through a very cursory and
uncomplicated customs inspection and then sat on the dock awaiting the arrival of
Bobbie Raikes and Mrs. Bunting who were bringing a farewell picnic lunch. While
we waited, three professional snake charmers, who were going to Makran to collect
specimens, entertained us with their baskets of cobras.

The look of concerned horror on Ethel-Jane's face as she approached the
medieval-looking wooden boat to which we were entrusting our lives, soon turned to
one of fascination, and perhaps even envy, as she pondered the adventures she would
be missing by not accompanying us. Captain K-, wearing khaki trousers, a safari
jacket, and a pith helmet on his head, arrived while we were picnicking. Also, to
our amusement, he had a double-barrelled shotgun slung over his shoulder and a
double-rowed bandoleer across his chest. We ourselves had chosen not to carry
firearms, putting our trust partly in the protection that we anticipated from local
officials and the camel-mounted Makran Militia, and partly on the surprise factor:

24

The Survey          25

I  N

The Country Craft "Mujahid"

surely such a small group of Westerners, including a woman, burdened with stacks of
heavily laden metal trunks, bundles of bamboo poles, and baskets of live chickens
could pose no threat to Makran.

At 1:00 we started loading our gear onto the boat. Our "cabin" was one small
wooden chamber, 7 by 10 feet, usually reserved for ten persons. With all our gear, it
was all we could do to squeeze five of us in. It was the only "cabin" in the boat, so we
considered ourselves luckier than the rest of the passengers who had to settle down
on the open deck. Our cook, Noor, opted for the open deck so that he could safeguard
our baskets of live chickens and other fresh food supplies (plate 3).

Plate 3      Noor, our cook

Shortly after we completed loading, the stream of Pakistani passengers
started to fill the open deck. It was a wild assortment of humanity, animals, and
luggage totalling about a hundred persons. Among the passengers were the three
professional snake charmers, called Jogis, who go to the coast regularly to collect
poisonous snakes. They milk them for the venom which they sell to a medical

Plate 2

10-

Explorations on the Makran Coast

research outfit in Karachi. Other passengers included entire families of Makranis
returning home loaded down with newly purchased bedding rolls, blankets, food
stuffs, and pottery: stacks of Karachi-made pottery being transported more than 200
miles to the coastal settlements. There were also several English-speaking,
Western-clothed, college-aged boys returning home from Karachi for short
vacations.

The Mujahid was some sorry boat (we hesitated to dignify it by calling it a
ship). It was all wood, diesel-powered, and had a "kitchen" with open fires in
charcoal braziers set right on the deck beside an oven-like firebox supported on
mudbricks. Just next to this "kitchen" was the "facility"-one little square chamber
suspended over the stern of the boat with a hole in the floor. That was it for the
more than a hundred passengers and crew.

At 4 P.M. the captain finally started working the boat out of the crowded
harbor. It took more than an hour to clear Manora Lighthouse and head out into the
open sea. Only minutes later, all hell broke loose. The sea swells were damn heavy
and increased as we made our way westward across Sonmiani Bay. By 7 P.M.
virtually everyone aboard was sick. Misery was everywhere. The deck passengers
did not even make the effort to go to the side of the boat to relieve themselves. The
deck was soon awash with sea spray and vomit. The sheep, goats, and chickens did
not fare any better than the wretched human animals. Even the boat's captain
confessed to us later that he got seasick almost every voyage. Perhaps the cobras in
their baskets were the only comfortable creatures aboard.
Sunday, October 2

We spent a terrible night, awakening from our fitful sleeps feeling even
worse than we had during the initial onrush of sickness. The fouling of the deck
continued. Mercifully, by noon the sea started to calm, and we hoped, at the
minimum, to be close enough to land and feeling well enough to get a good view of the
coastline. But a thick haze developed, and the coastline was obscured. We
speculated whether the captain even had a compass. At 4 P.M. we were informed
that we were passing the massive, rocky Ormara headland, one of our survey
objectives, but the atmosphere was too hazy to allow us to see anything in detail.
We subsisted on bouillon and bread and by sundown were feeling some better. The
crew had washed down the deck with buckets of sea water so the physical
environment was appreciably improved.
Monday, October 3

We, and the multitude of people and animals on the crowded open deck,
spent a more restful night. By 9:00 A.M. we could see the coastline, but it was still
very hazy. We could make out a wall of huge vertical cliffs but could see no evidence
of sandy beaches where we might want to land and explore. It was certainly not an
inviting scene, even with the harshness of the rock filtered by the haze.6

On and on we chugged averaging about six miles per hour. We were
scheduled to arrive at Gwadar by 3 P.M. but didn't drop anchor in East Gwadar Bay
until 9 P.M. The coast east of Gwadar is very deceptive as seen from the water. The
dark outline of Jebel Sur, consisting of Pliocene mudstones lifted to a height of 516
feet, fooled us completely. The haze was still quite thick and made it impossible to
get a good orientation. We thought from our maps that it was Jebel Mehdi, an often
cited landmark, between Jebel Sur and Gwadar. This feature, also of Pliocene
mudstones, is a deeply dissected platform uplifted to 1,344 feet. Its magnificent

26

The Survey          27

wave-cut cliffs, 500 to 600 feet high, make an imposing landform when seen from the
sea.

Fortunately, there was almost a full moon, and as we headed slowly into the
bay, we were greeted by the anxious shouts of fishermen warning us away from their
nets.

Tuesday, October 4

We awoke early, full of anticipation at what our first daylight look at the
Makran coast would reveal. Gwadar Bay was very impressive especially with a
heavy fog clouding the base of Jebel Mehdi. This massive, uplifted platform or
headland dominates the scene rising 476 feet above the sea It is connected with the
mainland by a five-mile long sand spit (tombolo) upon which the small town of
Gwadar is situated.

We also shared an unspoken feeling of apprehension about the people we
would encounter in Makran. The grim description of the Makrani fishermen given by
Pottinger (see Introduction, p.1) seemed too biased for serious consideration. But then
there were the descriptions provided by Classical authors: Arrian, Diodoros Siculus,
and Q. Curtius Rufus, who, for example (see McCrindle 1896 and Eggermont 1975),
described the Ichthyophagoi ("fish eaters") as an "inhospitable and utterly savage
tribe." The people had long claw-like nails and long shaggy hair, wore skins of wild
animals, and fed on fish dried in the sun and on the flesh of "sea monsters" cast on the
shore during stormy weather. They lived on the beaches in huts made from stacks of
mussel shells and the rib bones of whales. Certainly, we hoped, conditions had
improved over two millennia.

We were anchored about one and a half miles from the beach of East Gwadar
Bay, near the three fathom limit.7 We could get ashore only by transferring
ourselves and our baggage to smaller boats (plate 4). We waited until almost 10:00
before a few small fishing boats 20 to 25 feet long-called "horas" (Greenhill 1972)-
came out to unload the passengers. We were amazed that all of our baggage, some 400
pounds of it, plus all six of us, were crammed successfully into one of those small
boats.

Plate 4

Arrival at Gwadar

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Some of those small boats were not able to get closer than about twenty yards
from the beach before running aground. Several of the women were carried ashore on
charpois (rope beds), unfortunately not carried high enough to clear the surf. Some of
the men were carried ashore on the shoulders of native bearers. Luckily, we were
able to work our boat almost to the beach so that by jumping off the bow we were able
to stay relatively dry. All our baggage was carried ashore on the heads of bearers
(plate 5).

Plate 5      Landing at Gwadar

We landed just below the Customs House. The Customs officials claimed
that they had not been notified of our arrival and were quite surprised to see this
group of foreigners, especially a woman. Mughal eventually convinced them that we
had government approval and were carrying government equipment, and they let us
pass without further questions. While the rest of our team rested on the beach with
our equipment, Mughal and I went to meet the tahsildar (the chief revenue officer of
an administrative subdivision). He was a cooperative and helpful fellow who
promised to arrange for camels to transport us to Sutkagen Dor the next afternoon. It
would be an overnight journey he told us. Water would be available at the Suntsar
levy post north of Sutkagen Dor. He said also that chickens, eggs, and limited labor
would be found there. We should pay the going rate there for labor which he said
was 2 1/2 or 3 rupees per day (about 60 cents). Rates were much higher in Gwadar,
around 15 rupees (about $3.15), because most of the local men worked part time in the
Persian Gulf for the oil companies and made high wages there.

After much haggling, we finally arranged for our gear to be carried to the old
government Rest House, as the newly constructed one was occupied. The heat was
terrific and a steady strong wind from the southwest dehydrated us even more. The
Rest House, perched on the highest elevation in town, consisted of the shell of what
was once an impressive residency for the British officers and families stationed here
in the mid-1800s3. Most notably, Major Mockler, the discoverer of Sutkagen Dor, had
lived there. The Pakistan government was slowly trying to renovate it. We had to
stop two workers from tearing off what was left of the roof (plates 6 and 7). After
purchasing six tins of fresh water, we all had most refreshing baths. Noor, confident
and efficient in his spartan surroundings, cooked a delicious fresh fish curry for lunch.

28

The Survey          29

Plate 6      Gwadar: Old British residency in background

Plate 7       Gwadar: Rest House/old British residency

After lunch and a brief rest, we walked about the property associated with
the Rest House. Some 180 meters north of the northeast corner of the house and about
15 meters in from the present edge of the beach bluff is a small English cemetery with
the remains of seven graves (figure 3). The original iron fences around each grave are
mostly gone. We also found indications that a metal fence surrounded the roughly

Explorations on the Makran Coast

square platform upon which the burials are located. The cemetery was in deplorable
condition: what headstones had not been demolished were being defiled by the
villagers. The inscriptions on only three of the seven graves were found:9 two dated
to the time of Major Mockler's residence and one later, after the office of British
political assistant had been turned over to local authorities. About 16 meters north
of the cemetery stood a Christian monument that showed no signs of vandalism. It
consisted of a square column of conglomerate stone topped by a truncated pyramid on
top of which was a stone cross. The surfaces were badly worn and revealed no trace of
an inscription. Its relation to the cemetery proper is unknown.

Figure 3     English Cemetery at Gwadar

Then we walked across to the western edge of the sandy isthmus connecting
the huge headland with the mainland. After reaching the western edge, we
followed the beach south to the 476-foot-high rocky bluff at the approach to
Gwadar Head. At the base of the sheer cliff, we came upon a peculiar mudbrick
shrine (figure 15, #3). On each side of the structure paths led to what appeared to be
tiny caves in the cliff face. The cave to the left of the shrine had a wooden door. To
the right of the shrine was what looked like a double tunnel affair with both
entrances blocked with mud. We later learned that this was the home of some holy
man, but we were unable to learn any more details.

From there we walked into the village. The people, including the women,
are exceptionally friendly. The village itself was neat and clean with well-made
mud houses and shops. The streets were unexpectedly clean. It proved to be a truly
picturesque place, at least within the village itself. The beaches were another
matter, reeking with the smell of dead fish and human excrement. Still at night,

30

The Survey           31

with a full moon, a cool breeze, and the sound of the pounding surf, we felt relaxed
and fortunate to be there. We would return to Gwadar on our return trip along the
coast to conduct some surveys of the area. Our overwhelming concern now was to
obtain transport so that we could get on with our survey.
Wednesday, October 5

We spent most of the day repacking our bulky gear so it could be carried more
efficiently by the camels that had been promised to us. It was 5 P.M. before eight
camels with four barefooted local drivers appeared on the beach below the Rest
House. They were one-humped baggage camels-with wooden "saddles"-not the
more comfortable riding camels we would encounter later in the survey. As I looked
at those dirty, unkept creatures, I remembered the detailed instructions given to me
by Beatrice de Cardi about how to bargain for and select the best camels.
Unfortunately, when you need eight camels and there are only eight camels
available, you have no choice.

It took about an hour to load the camels with the tin boxes of supplies, the
tents, the inflatable rubber raft, and the baskets of live chickens. As the sun
descended behind the massive silhouette of Gwadar Head, we climbed aboard our
"ships of the desert," squeezing two of us into each small saddle; an arrangement
that proved to be increasingly uncomfortable and painful (plate 8).

Our initial goal was a dot on our old British maps called Akara "water
hole," only some thirteen miles distance. At last we were really on our way, and on
our own, free from the bureaucratic perturbations of Karachi. The feeling of release
and the tingling sense of potential adventure made us break out into random smiles as
we plodded for four and half hours to Akara. Even the physical discomforts of the
wood-frame saddles were tolerated good naturedly as we delighted in the full moon
and the cool gentle breeze. The ground was a sandy clay mixed with marine shells-
skeletons of geological convolutions in the distant past. We would have chosen to
dismount and walk at intervals but were warned by the camel drivers that it was too
dangerous. Why?-they did not say.

As we approached the Akara depression, we saw that it was little more
than a wide place in a streambed with stagnant muddied water. The pool was
surrounded by higher ground that cut out any view of the landscape or of the horizon,
but the depression provided a welcome shield against the increasingly chilly breeze.
We spread out our bedding rolls on the warm sand and settled down to sleep.
Thinking we were the only travelers in the region, we were surprised to be awakened
throughout the night by the plodding sounds and slobbery exhausts of dozens of
camels passing in file, silhouetted against the moonlit sky. It was like a ghostly
montage made even more impressive because we knew not from whence they came or
to where they were going.

As the sun rose and lit the top of the sand dunes surrounding us, we were
confronted again with a scene of utter tranquility: no shuffling, slobbering camel
trains, no commands of "hoosh! hoosh!" from the drivers-only a static, lonesome
feeling of being somehow suspended in time and space. Suddenly we were called back
to the damp, chilly reality of our situation as our own camels unfolded their spindly
legs and awkwardly rose to tower above us.

While we devoured a breakfast of biscuits and jam, washed down with cups
of steaming tea, the camel drivers reloaded the camels. Unexpectedly, we also had
to give food to the drivers who had brought nothing with them. Angrily they told us
that they had been ordered by the tahsildar to take us and had had to leave on a

Explorations on the Makran Coast

moment's notice with no time to prepare food. We observed later on, however, that
they were often chewing on fresh dates and they stopped frequently to take milk
from the camels.

We then mounted our camels for the long plodding journey to Sutkagen Dor.
The first stage of the day's travel was a three-hour crossing of the wide, sandy
coastal plain. Upon reaching the first pass through the coastal mountains (Gar-i-
Kuh Mountains), we treated ourselves to a fifteen-minute, water-and-jelly-bun
break. There, we got our first look at the telegraph line that provided the basic
communication link between the isolated communities along the coast.10 The metal
poles and shiny wire were obviously new, but they conjured up visions of Kipling's
Kim. If it was not this actual line, it was one similar to it that the British stretched
from Bombay to Baghdad more than a century ago-a single, thin, umbilical cord
connecting Britain with the "Jewel in the Crown"-India.

The next hour's travel took us through a Hades of black, clinker-like spoil
from some infernal blast furnace. In this Hades we occasionally came upon small
oases with clumps of acacia trees and date palms. Overall the terrain was much
more difficult than the maps and air photos had indicated. At 1:00 we stopped at
one of the oases for a lunch of rice and potato curry and tea in the welcome shade of
the trees.

It was almost 4:00 before we felt rested enough to go on and had the camels
reloaded. Our camel drivers predicted another six hours to the Customs Post on the
east side of the Dasht. The terrain did not improve. Following the westward
extension of the Talar Range, we rode on with virtually no break for six hours. The
steady forward-backward-sideways rocking of the heavily laden camels, and the
intense heat, lulled us into brief moments of sleep. For those of us riding double that
was safe enough, but Captain K-, because of his ample size, was riding alone. At
one point we were snapped back to consciousness by a loud metallic noise followed by
shouts from the camel drivers. The captain had nodded off and dropped his
shotgun-rather unmilitary behavior. He was embarrassed, but relieved that the
gun had not discharged when it smashed onto the rocky trail.

At the end of the six hours of riding we were disconcerted to hear from the
drivers that we were still at least an hour from the Dasht. We, including the camel
drivers, were exhausted and took a short break before continuing. Finally, at 11:00
P.M. we arrived at the Customs Post on the east bank of the Dasht Valley. The
camel drivers wanted to return immediately to Gwadar, but we insisted on them
taking us to Sutkagen Dor the next morning.11 We were not successful in arousing
anyone there, so we assembled our cots and settled in under the stars for the night.
Friday, October 7

We awoke at 6:00, drenched with dew and bitterly cold. Noor had already
been up for an hour or so and had freshly cooked chapattis (small, round flat breads
similar to tortillas except they are made with corn instead of wheat flour) and hot
tea ready for us. Mughal and I headed out immediately on foot for Suntsar, the local
administrative center, to inform the officials of our presence. Our camel drivers said
it was about one mile awayon the west side of the Dasht Valley. It proved to be
more like three miles. The Dasht, the largest river draining Makran, was
completely dry at this time of the year. It had an impressively wide bed-about 200
yards across-and banks up to 25 feet high.

32

The Survey

.: :Y

_7

off,;

Xw

lq

*

S

>:: S

Plate 8      From Gwadar to Sutkagen Dor

33

34        Explorations on the Makran Coast

Suntsar was not a village at all-no bazaar, no nothing except the fort-like,
white-plastered headquarters of the Makran Militia.12 The camel-riding militia
was a product of British colonial days when camel corps were in charge of
maintaining law and order in desert regions. Here especially they patrolled the
border with Iran for smugglers. They rode magnificent whitish camels with brightly
colored saddles and reins. I remembered seeing such militia in Jordan but had not
expected that someday I would have to rely on them for personal protection.

We were cordially received by the commander (subadar), named Jahangir,
who agreed to round up some workmen and to allow us to draw on some of the Militia
food stores. Otherwise, there were few supplies available between there and Jiwani.
Locally, the sparse population-said to be about four persons per square mile-grew
small quantities of beans, lentils, and corn but that was about all. Fortunately, the
Militia's monthly supply run to Jiwani was the next day. We put in an order for
small quantities of flour, sugar, salt, tea, and dates. Jahangir assigned a man to bring
us water twice a day.

As for our intended destination, Sutkagen Dor, considerable discussion was
required before the militiamen recognized what we were looking for. They brought
in an elderly, wizened gentleman who recalled working for Sir Aurel Stein when he
excavated at the site in 1928. When we asked him which direction it was to the site,
he performed a ritualistic act that we were to encounter innumerable times through
the years in the remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He raised his head,
squinted his eyes, lifted his right arm, with his palm down, and raised and lowered
his index finger slowly in the direction requested.

At the insistence of Jahangir Baba-as almost all elderly men could be
called-he walked us to the site. At first glance, it looked just like the barren,
uplifted ridges that we had seen all the way from Gwadar. We would have had
considerable difficulty locating the site without his guidance. He showed us where
Stein had camped, just to the north of the huge citadel. After we had noted the exact
location of the site on our map, we walked back to where we had left the rest of our
party, reaching them at about 11:00. The temperature was already near 110 degrees.
Although we were baked out, we wanted to shift our supplies to the site and set up
camp.

One of our camels had disappeared and Captain K- had taken another one
to go over to the militia post. So we piled everything on the remaining six animals.
Barbara and Noor rode, while Cuyler, Mughal, and I walked.

We selected a small wooded area about seventy-five yards north of the site,
near where the elderly guide said Stein had camped. Although there were numerous
trees and bushes, the foliage was too sparse to provide much respite from the sun
(plate 9). Exhausted and not at all acclimatized to the heat, we rested until 4:30. In
the meantime, Captain K- had returned from Suntsar where he had made
arrangements to ride in the militia supply truck to Jiwani at 2:30. We bid him a
puzzled farewell, still uncertain as to why he had come with us in the first place.

Sufficiently revived by 4:30, we turned our attentions to practical matters
concerning our camp. First, the question of water. The man assigned by the militia to
bring water twice a day was one thing, but we wanted to have control over another
source if possible. We would be needing a steady supply of water to rinse the pottery
that we anticipated collecting during our investigation of the site. Mughal, Cuyler,
and I walked over to the riverbed where we found a rough hole. It had been dug to
provide water for the few head of cattle that roamed in the area. It was a nasty-
looking affair, a couple of feet deep with a few inches of muddy water in the bottom.

34

The Survey          35

". 4i 4._

R  i''                                                                                                 v~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~O

Explorations on the Makran Coast

The three of us, using a metal cup and a canvas bucket, were able to bathe on the spot
before temporarily exhausting the groundwater supply. We tried to deepen the hole,
but without some sort of casing for support, the sandy sediments just collapsed into
the hole. Eventually we succeeded in filling the bucket and carried it back to camp. I
poured as Barbara showered behind a tree.

The water tasted really quite good even though full of a clay-like muddy
sediment (plate 10). Nonetheless, we already had established the rule with the
cook that no matter where water came from, no matter how clean it looked or fine it
tasted, it was to be boiled before using in the kitchen.

The camp consisted of two tents with sewn-in floors and mosquito-net
doorways. For sleeping, we had inflatable rubber mattresses and rather ingenious,
but difficult to assemble, metal-frame cots. Noor preferred to string up a hammock
between the two trees that also provided some shelter for his kitchen. He had
insisted that he did not want elaborate equipment for his kitchen, so we brought only
basic metal and plastic pots and pans. His experiences with the British Army in the
deserts of Egypt had conditioned him to know how to run an efficient field kitchen.
He set out immediately to make his own charcoal. To our amazement, he presented
us with a freshly baked sponge cake for desert that first evening at Sutkagen Dor.
We felt comfortable about having chosen him.

Before sunset, we made our first visit up onto the site (plates 11 through 14).
Given our excitement about actually having reached Sutkagen Dor, we felt a curious
disappointment as we had our first look at the rectangle of steeply sloping, sandstone
outcrops. They were thickly covered with pottery sherds but showed little trace of
architectural remains.

A relatively flat area to the east and north of this "citadel" had the barest
remains of what might have been Harappan house foundations. The surface was
badly pitted and eroded though, and, in the few exposed sections, we could see no
evidence for stratified architectural remains. Perhaps that was the area where
Major Mockler had done his amateur diggings a century ago. We returned to camp
feeling somewhat discouraged. Knowing how exhausted we were, we reassured one
another that the next morning we would be more receptive to what the site had to
offer.

Saturday, October 8

Our first night at Sutkagen Dor was interrupted frequently by the mournful
howls, the barks and yips of jackals who approached our camp hoping to steal food
from us. There was something about the sound of them that is difficult to describe.
One has to experience it. Since all our food supplies, except the live chickens, were
stored in metal trunks, the gastronomic intentions of the furry beasts were
disappointed, at least for the first night.

It was uncomfortably cold upon rising. After breakfast we reread, together,
Stein's and Mockler's published accounts of the site. We then set out to make our
initial surface survey of the site. That included identifying features on Stein's plan
of the site and those specific parts of the site described by Mockler and Stein (figures
4 and 5). It was a difficult and confusing site with natural rock popping up at every
turn. Numerous traces of stone wall foundations had been exposed by erosion,
especially to the north and south of the huge rectangular citadel enclosure.

36

The Survey  37

040

E   ~~~~~~~~~

48  Z/j\

\  g;'1t.8.{.'i -

*71  0

r -j v

I

\ A?

.1 1

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Plate 11     Sutkagen Dor: General view from the south

Sutkagen Dor: Inside the citadel, from northwest to southeast

38

Plate 12

The Survey          39

Plate 13     Sutkagen Dor: Inside of citadel, from southwest to northeast

Plate 14

Sutkagen Dor:
Looking north
along westem
citadel wall-
Trench A-A/1

visible at base of
natural outcrop

Explorations on the Makran Coast

I

2

Figure 4      Sketches of Sutkagen Dor in the 1870s (Mockler 1877)

Roughly shaped stones were used in the construction of massive walls still
preserved along the west, south, and east sides of the citadel. The northern limit of
the enclosure was formed basically by the natural rock outcrop. The depressions
between the highest points had been filled in with rocks and, we surmised, with
mudbrick or pise walls and platforms. Harappan period sherds paved the surface of
the interior of the enclosure which sloped down from the northeast to the southwest.
In the corner of the southern wall were the remains of what appeared to have been
an impressive entryway. Unfortunately, it looked as if much of the habitation
remains within the citadel had washed out through this opening over the centuries.
The intended test excavation would address this question.

Standing on top of the citadel, we observed that the plain to the northwest
and northeast was covered by vast amounts of silt. We asked the militiamen about
this. They said that two years before, the Dasht had overflowed its banks and the
entire plain had been under two feet of water.

That afternoon we were visited by the tahsildar of Jiwani who was
inspecting his region of jurisdiction. We had a helpful discussion with him
concerning supplies, travel, and the locations of other possible archaeological sites.
He presented us with a freshly killed duck from a pond some three miles south of
Sutkagen Dor. It was a welcome addition to our Spartan diet, although we had been
able to make random purchases from camel caravans that passed by our camp of such
items as reed mats and dates. The supplies we had ordered from Jiwani arrived late
in the afternoon.

At 4:00, Mughal, Cuyler, and I went to the citadel to select a location for test
excavations. Surface traces of what appeared to be walls were seen at only one place
within the citadel-some ten meters inside its western wall. We selected the spot
for our Trench A, and it was agreed that Mughal, assisted by Cuyler, would be in
charge of the excavation.

The afternoon heat was stifling and had a debilitating effect on our efforts to
sustain physical activity. We were hindered even more by the myriad of flies that

40

The Survey           41

swarmed ceaselessly around any exposed skin. Nevertheless, after a simple but
delicious dinner, we retired with a sense of euphoria and excitement. The next day
we were to begin our own excavations at one of the most interesting and enigmatic
Harappan sites. Would we uncover new evidence relating to the question of
commercial and cultural contacts between the Indus Valley and the Near East?
Would we be able to prove the identification of Sutkagen Dor as being either Magan,
Meluhha, or Dilmun?

Figure 5 Plan of Sutkagen Dor: updated from the original published by Stein (1931)

Sunday, October 9

The jackals came right into camp in the middle of the night, certainly after
our chickens which were in baskets suspended from one of our kitchen trees. We were
awakened by Noor's angry shouts which were instantly effective in scaring off the
animals. They did prove to be cowardly beasts in spite of their initial aggressive
approach. Noor was used to such incursions in desert camps and was more angry at
being awakened than afraid of the animals. The day before, while preparing lunch,
he had looked up and was startled to see a four-to five-foot long snake wrapped
around a branch just a few feet above the pot of cooking rice. He dispatched it and
disposed of it before we had a chance to identify it, but he tried to assure us that it
was not poisonous. Our encounter with poisonous snakes was to come when we reached
the coast.

Explorations on the Makran Coast

The first day of excavations got off to a late start. The local laborers
promised by the tahsildar and the militia commander did not arrive until 9:30.
Twenty-one bedraggled and somewhat disgruntled men arrived in a group. Their
clothes were a helter-skelter mixture of traditional Baluchi baggy pants, dirty
voluminous turbans, and cast-off U.S. Army dress uniform jackets, complete with
hash marks and unit patches. Most of the men were barefoot; a few had open sandals
made of strips of leather attached to soles cut from old rubber tires. They spoke only
Baluchi with which none of us was familiar. Mughal with his Urdu and Cuyler
with his Persian were able to organize the men into work parties and give them some
idea of what was expected of them.

The men had walked miles from their homes-isolated groups of reed houses
where they and their families operated tiny farms or tended small herds of cattle.
They had been ordered by the militia to work for us at the rate of 3 rupees (63 cents)
per day. We learned later, the day before leaving Sutkagen Dor, that in fact the
order to work was much more insidious than we had imagined. They had been
ordered to work under threat of punishment if they refused. We felt badly upon
hearing this but were assured by the local authorities that it was really a financial
break for the men. Usually they were ordered to work for the militia for no pay at
all!

Most of the men had brought their basic farming implement, a wide-bladed,
short-handled hoe. We had picks and baskets for them to carry away the excavated
dirt. They agreed, starting the next day, to work from 6:30 to 11:00 and 3:00 to 5:30,
leaving the hottest part of the day for rest.

Mughal's men excavated down to about half a meter below the surface. The
pottery sherds were excellent examples of Mature Harappan plain and red slipped
wares. Even at that initial stage it was evident that Mughal was an excellent
excavator. What we saw was textbook British Wheelerian archaeology at work:
great attention to form, tidiness, and appearance.

While Mughal was supervising the preliminary excavations in Trench A, we
had agreed that Cuyler should devote attention to the eastern wall of the citadel.
At the location called Operation B, he had several men clear down to expose the
inside surface and flat top of the stone peripheral wall. They also cleared the debris
in a strip down the outer surface of the wall to ground level. Clearing, not
excavation, was the operational word (plates 15 and 16).

Digging against the inside face of the stone peripheral wall in Operation B
was unexpectedly difficult. The surface consisted of large numbers of fallen rocks and
the soil, much of what must have been decayed mudbrick from the structures that
once crowned the natural outcrop, was like cement. If we broke the blades and points
of our tools at the rate we had done the first day, we would have been out of the
excavation business in just a few days.

Jahangir, commander of the militia, visited us during the midday break
with several of his camel-mounted militiamen. It was comforting to have his
friendship and assurance of assistance in case of need.

While Mughal and Cuyler were busy starting their operations, I walked
again over the area to the east of the citadel where Mockler had dug. At other
Harappan sites such as Mohenjo Daro and Harappa, this would be the Lower Town or
residential area. The scene was puzzling and initially disappointing. Beneath the

42

The Survey           43

Plate 15

Sutkagen Dor
Operation B,

eastern wall of
citadel, inner
face, showing
probable late

(historical?) wall

on top of Harappan
stone wall

Plate 16

Sutkagen Dor
Operation B,

eastern citadel
wall, sloping
exterior face

Explorations on the Makran Coast

surface layer of innumerable Harappan sherds, scattered remains of what appeared
to have been building foundations could be seen, but nothing was visible in the eroded
sections beneath the thin surface deposits except silt. I checked the sides of the dry
streambeds and deep erosion gullies and found no indication of human occupation in
the three meters of exposed alluvial deposits. Was it a one-period occupation that
left only a thin scatter of remains or had all the structures simply been destroyed and
washed away over the millennia? In retrospect, given the recent and current
research especially at Mohenjo Daro and Harappa, I may well have been seeing
remains of mudbrick or pise platforms and simply did not recognize them. Massive
platform construction is now known to have been the initial building phase at some
Harappan sites.

On the surface, in the small area where building foundations were visible, I
did find a complete copper concave disc (plate 69; object #3), a clay bangle, and
Harappan slipped and painted pottery, all in excellent condition.

I then walked the circuit of the stone walls surrounding most of the citadel.
The opening in the southwest corner was certainly a major gateway (plate 17). The
solid stone structures on both sides of the narrow passageway measured twelve meters
thick according to my preliminary calculations.
Monday, October 10

It did not cool off last night making for many restless hours. And the jackals
tried to invade our camp several times, each time to be scared off by Noor. Most of
our workers didn't arrive until 8:00. We appreciated that they had to walk several
miles, didn't have watches, or even much positive incentive to come at all, so we had
to allow for that.

Cuyler continued clearing the outer face of the eastern wall to reveal a gently
sloping, stony surface. He also set some men to doing a small trench out on the flats to
the east of the citadel (Operation C). Just as I had observed the previous day in the
erosion sections, the trench revealed nothing but seven superimposed layers of barren
river silt. He stopped digging at a depth of 2.60 meters beneath the level of the
stone foundations on the surface. About five meters away, between this trench and
the eastern base of the stone citadel wall, an erosion gully had exposed a line of
what might have been stone foundations. Possibly Cuyler would have time to
investigate that area.

Mughal's trench was down to more than a meter deep by the end of the day.
At the northern end, he had come down on what appeared to be bedrock. At the
southern end, his trench stopped at the face of an east-west stone wall with six
courses in situ. On the north side of the wall, he encountered a layer of baked bricks
of the size reported by Mockler from the "outer town,"13 part of what seemed to be a
paving. It was associated with a stratigraphic level beneath the stone wall, so we
had definite evidence of at least two occupational phases.

That was well and good, but the trench, about twenty-five feet from the inner
face of the massive western peripheral wall of the citadel, was isolated. After the
workers left for the day, Cuyler and I spent about an hour looking at the trench and
discussing the significance of the initial discoveries in it. We agreed that it would
be good archaeology to expand the excavation into an L-shaped trench with the
east-west part extending to the inside face of the peripheral wall. That would help
us ascertain whether the stone peripheral wall belonged to the Harappan period, as
we felt almost certain it did, or whether it was constructed at some later time.

44

The Survey          45

Plate 17     Sutkagen Dor: Gateway at southwest corner of citadel; looking east

along southern wall

, V, tak

4-r. ?

? *7

A-0

.4*,     .

. - "k, I?x ??,

? 1.? .:?: .- , !t,

Explorations on the Makran Coast

After dinner we had a lengthy discussion with Mughal concerning the
matter. He was reluctant to give his permission. Our license stated specifically that
we were permitted to excavate only one trench at any given site. Fortunately, his
professional sense-and curiosity-prevailed over his bureaucratic orders, and he
agreed to the necessity of expanding the trench. We were pleased and relieved at
this successful example of opting for expediency in a situation where we were not
certain if we would ever have another opportunity to work at Sutkagen Dor.
Tuesday, October 11

The excavations continued as scheduled. Nothing significantly new was
uncovered, but we were getting a better sense of the state of preservation of the
occupational remains. Barbara labored for much of the oppressively hot day
washing the excavated sherds in plastic buckets, being as parsimonious as possible in
using our precious water supply. After washing and drying them, she labeled each
sherd with India ink and entered them consecutively into our field register. I spent
most of the day surveying the visible remains of the site and entering the compass
readings and measurements onto our site plan. My survey was admittedly primitive
for such a large site-I had only a Brunton "pocket" compass and tapes. Nonetheless,
over several days I checked and rechecked angles and measurements until I felt
confident that I had achieved an acceptable level of accuracy.

Some of my measurements did not agree with those taken from Stein's map. I
rechecked those again with the same results I had obtained earlier. For example, I
measured 103.3 meters for the east-west width of the enclosed area on the citadel
whereas his plan showed about 117 meters (128 yards). He described the width of
the gateway as being 8 feet (2.45 meters) whereas the actual opening is clearly only
1.75 meters wide. Apparently the base of the walls forming the gateway were not
exposed when Stein was there, and he was measuring what appears to have been a
secondary structure on top of the original wall. Whatever the exact measurements,
there was no doubt that we were working in the largest walled citadel known at any
Harappan site equal in area to four football fields.

About 4:00, a massive dust storm blew in from the south. It was spectacular to
behold-a huge cloud of brown dust rolling toward us. The storm persisted until about
7:00 and then cleared away as quickly as it had appeared. Thank goodness it cooled
the place off a bit.

Wednesday, October 12

Mughal's expanded trench- 1.50 meters wide, designated A/1-has been
extended toward the inner face of the citadel wall (plate 18). He encountered a solid
mudbrick structure, possibly a revetment or platform, built against the inner face of
the stone wall.

Cuyler dug a second trench in the "lower town" where we had earlier noticed
wall foundations (we gave it no Operation number). The results were the same as he
had gotten in Operation C, but even more convincing. He went down through five
meters of barren river silt and then suspended work.

We had also located one of Stein's trenches (Ia) inside the northeast corner of
the citadel. Cuyler cleaned it out, straighted and drew the sections (figure 30;
Operation D). The steeply slanted strata, containing pottery sherds and organic
debris, added credibility to our hypothesis that mudbrick structures had existed on
top of the outcrops. At the end of the day we suspended that operation also and laid-
off twelve of our twenty-one workers.

46

The Survey          47

After work, we talked with one of the local men who had come to visit Noor.
We asked him about river floods. He told us that flooding occurred frequently but not
annually. The water usually got ankle deep, but he remembered one year when the
water got up to his shoulders. He said that farming took place in the valley only
when there was enough rain to allow the small fields to be flooded but that
practically nothing grows in the immediate area on a regular basis. For money they
cut down the scattered trees and take them to Gwadar or Jiwani to sell as firewood.
No pottery was made locally; it was all imported from Karachi and sold in Jiwani
and Gwadar. We recalled seeing hundreds of painted Sindi pottery vessels on the
boat that had brought us from Karachi.
Thursday, October 13

The night had been unusually cool, and we awoke to a heavy mist blowing in
from the southwest. Everything was drenched. When the mist burned off at about
8:00, the day became more hot and humid than usual. It was one of our most
uncomfortable yet, and the flies were even more numerous.

Mughal's Trench A-A/1 yielded some interesting new information. The
mudbrick structure against the inner face of the stone wall was made of large bricks,
some fifty centimeters long, and containing no straw or other temper for added
strength. The relationship between the mudbrick structure and peripheral wall
with the two building phases revealed in Trench A was still not clear.

Cuyler and I spent the afternoon taking more measurements on the citadel.
Barbara had been helping us with the measurements in the morning, but she ran into
a potentially serious problem. We were at the southern edge of the site, outside the
gateway, when suddenly she came down with violent stomach pains. She was
perspiring profusely and was on the verge of fainting. We had difficulty carrying
her back to camp in the intense heat. We treated her immediately for heat
exhaustion and gave her an antibiotic for the stomach pains. She rested for the
remainder of the day and was feeling considerably better by evening. She could have
easily gone into heatstroke, and we might have lost her.

Cuyler and I had noticed what seemed to be large stone piers or bastions
about mid-point on the interior of both the east and west citadel walls. Ideally, we
would have cleared the stone rubble from the two areas to learn more about the
structures, but we had neither the time, resources, nor permission to pursue this
problem.

As we had grown daily more familiar with the site, our initial
disappointment vanished. We began to realize the many intriguing problems about
this site that should be investigated. Would another team ever come out here to
work before the inside of the citadel was totally washed away?

We were compelled by budgetary and time limitations to dismiss five more
workers and to restrict our investigations to Mughal's Trench A-A/1.

Noor continued to surprise us with what he could produce in his open air
kitchen. Our meals were nutritionally adequate but somewhat boring. On this
particular day, we were able to buy one pound of fresh mutton. Meat was very scarce
because it was difficult to get enough buyers at one time to make it worthwhile to
slaughter an animal. Also, we had been able to purchase ghee (rendered butter) from
some of the camel caravans, but it was as expensive as it was in Karachi. We
continued to buy dates from passing caravans. They were plentiful and cheap, but one
had to be especially careful to examine each date before eating it. Because they

were transported on camel back in large, unwrapped bundles, they were covered by

Explorations on the Makran Coast

flies. Makrani dates are always highly praised, but personally I didn't think they
tasted as good as the dates I had eaten in Iraq.

Up to that point, we had not been able to get eggs. Our breakfasts consisted of
chapattis fried in ghee, one-third of a jar of jelly, dates, and instant coffee. Lunch
usually consisted of rice and beans, or a simple curry, with chapattis, dates, and tea.
For supper we had rice with chicken, or mutton when available, chapattis, dates,
and tea. The taste of the tea was greatly enhanced by adding a spoonful of Ovaltine
per cup. We were saving our supply of canned meats for the travelling days ahead.
Friday, October 14

During the morning I worked more on the site plan. Mughal's Trench A/1,
which we had thought was practically finished when he hit what seemed like
bedrock, took a wonderful turn for the better this morning. He went down through the
rocky stratum and found another occupation level below. We rehired three workers
(total of seven now) and resumed excavation in the entire trench. The pottery coming
from the excavation was still what we recognized as "Mature" Harappan. Whether
there would be any significant differences throughout the sequence remained to be
seen after the entire collection could be washed and studied. Certainly we had not
encountered any recognizable painted pottery from inland Baluchistan except
possibly for one of two sherds found on the surface of the site.

Cuyler's operations were completed, and he moved over to Mughal's trench to
assist in drawing the sections exposed in the excavations.

I explored in more detail than previously around the outside of the citadel
and found what appeared to be a pier or bastion outside the eastern wall. That was
especially interesting because it was located in the same position along the wall as
the stone structure that Cuyler and I had found associated with the interior side of
the wall. The presence of those solid stone structures on each side of the main citadel
wall suggested that they might have been foundations for towers. The site got more
complex, and more interesting, the more familiar we became with it.

Later in the afternoon, I took black-and-white photographs of the site. The
light was ideal for relatively close-up shots, but too much dust was blowing around
for clear, overall pictures of the site.

Barbara was feeling better but still had stomach pains and was exhausted
from the previous day's experience.

We had only a few more days that we could devote to Sutkagen Dor before
we would have to get on with the survey.
Saturday, October 15

The entire night had been refreshingly cool, but that made the daytime
temperature seem even hotter than usual. I spent all morning walking around the
areas immediately to the north and northeast of the citadel. The surfaces clearly
had been disturbed by human activities. There were hummocks of what,
superficially, looked like silt but possibly were the remains of mud platforms. There
were also traces of what looked suspiciously like old excavation trenches. I felt
badly that we were a century too late in getting to Sutkagen Dor. Major Mockler had
reported recognizable architecture preserved to the north and east of the citadel. He
must have dug extensively in those parts of the site and disrupted the thin veneer of
Harappan architecture that had survived the millennia of erosion.

48

The Survey          49

One impressive feature was still preserved. At the northeastern limit of the
mounded area of the site, drawn on Stein's plan, were two, low natural rock outcrops
about 120 yards (110 meters) apart. The western one was 17 feet (5.2 meters) high
and the eastern one 29 feet (8.9 meters) high. They were connected in an east-west
direction by a sloping embankment of rounded river boulders preserved for a length of
about 130 yards (119 meters) (plate 19; figures 6 and 7). This embankment was
certainly a man-made feature. And extending even farther from the western outcrop
to the northern edge of the citadel itself, was an alignment of raised ground. We all
examined the area and agreed that this might well have been part of a peripheral
wall protecting the northern, lower parts of the site from floods. Then we let our
imaginations have free reign. It was not at all impossible that the tidal waters in
the valley could have reached as far upstream as the site in antiquity. Could that
feature have been not just a flood protection wall but the remains of part of a dock or
harbor for small boats (figure 31)?

Figure 6
Sutkagen Dor
"Breakwater" at

northern corner

of site

Sutkagen Dor
Northeast Corner
"Breakwater"

lOOm

0

I

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Figure 7     Sutkagen Dor: Stone wall foundation inside "breakwater"

Just south of the eastern half of the stone embankment, were surface remains
of stone foundations, one east-west wall being two meters wide (figure 7; plates 20
and 21).

Cuyler worked in Mughal's area drawing sections in Trench A. Mughal was
down more than three and a half meters in Trench A/1, and by the end of the day it
was certain that he would be down into natural soil (plates 22 through 29).

I spent most of the afternoon with Barbara taking color photos of the site. As
we worked our way around at plain level to the southwest corner of the site, we
noticed, at some distance to the west, a scatter of pottery sherds. We went out about
200 to 300 meters from the citadel and found a heavy concentration of Harappan
sherds on the surface. We thought first that they were just sherds washed down from
the citadel, but they were definitely concentrated just north of an east-west
sandstone ridge. Farther to the west, to a point on Stein's map 530 paces west of his
northwest "sangar" (a small circular enclosure of rough stones used during relatively
recent times as observation or protected points for riflemen) on top of the citadel,
between two steep, high limestone outcrops, we found what was certainly a primary
archaeological site. Its area was small, but low down in the defile an east-west stone
wall connected the two natural ridges. From the east end of the wall, another wall
ran south at a right angle. Both walls were severely weathered, but they were
typologically related to the stone walls present at the main site of Sutkagen Dor.
Just to the north of the walls was a thick deposit of alluvium covered with good
examples of Harappan pottery. Possibly the site was some sort of an outpost for
Sutkagen Dor. Unfortunately, we did not have time to investigate it further.

50

The Survey           51

Sutkagen Dor: Trench A-Al1, looking east

Mw

.1- ;;,

Plate 18

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Plate 19

Sutkagen Dor: Stone
embankment between
natural rock outcrops
at northeastern corner
of site, looking west

Plate 20

Sutkagen Dor: Stone wall foundations inside northeastern corner of the
site, just south of the east-west stone embankment, looking to southwest
with citadel in background

52

The Survey          53

Plate 21

Sutkagen Dor Stone
wall foundations
inside northeastern
corner of site; inner
face of east-west
stone embankment at
upper right of photo

Plate 22

Sutkagen Dor Trench
A-A/1, looking west
to inside face of
western stone citadel
wall (The trench cuts
through the mudbrick
structure against the
face of the stone
wall.)

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Plate 23

Sutkagen Dor: Trench
A/1 section through
the mudbrick struc-
ture against the inner
face of the western
citadel wall

Plate 24

Sutkagen Dor: Trench
A/1 looking west
through mudbrick
structure to inner face
of western citadel
wall; natural soil at
bottom of trench

54

The Survey          55

Plate 25

Sutkagen Dor: Trench
A/1 looking east to
Trench A; natural soil
at bottom of trench

Plate 26

Sutkagen Dor: Trench
A/1 north section
showing stones placed
against base of mud-
brick structures at
Level 6

Plate 27

Sutkagen Dor: Trench
A/1 south section show-
ing blocked passage way,
Wall 2A between Wall 2
and mudbrick structure
against inner face of the
western citadel wall

Explorations on the Makran Coast

4^

Plate 28   Sutkagen Dor: Trench A looking north showing scattered stones of Level

1 (in foreground) and late, post-Harappan wall at upper end of trench

56

The Survey          57

4 .

I Zi

s 4r

Plate 29    Sutkagen Dor: Trench A southeast corner; Stone Wall 2 on right. Floor

Level 6 with fired bricks imbedded in clay surface

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Sunday, October 16

All night the jackals howled outside our tents against the background of
distant drums coming from some remote village, probably for a wedding ceremony. In
addition, the night had been depressingly hot and stuffy. Then at sunrise, hoards of
flies invaded our canvas-shrouded privacy.

I took photographs of sherds during the morning, while Cuyler took over the
work in Trench A/1 and Mughal did paperwork. Barbara continued cataloging the
excavated sherds. By noon, Cuyler had reached the bottom of the inner face of the
western citadel wall. The wall was constructed on natural soil and stood to a height
of 3.30 meters. So, except for cleaning up the excavated sections and drawing and
photographing the trenches, our work at Sutkagen Dor had to be brought to a close.

At 4 P.M. Mughal and I walked over to the militia post to pay our respects to
Commander Jahangir and to invite him and his junior officer for dinner on the coming
Tuesday. We arranged through him to hire seven camels for Thursday morning, the
twentieth.

We spent about forty-five minutes with him asking about local life and
conditions. He told us that what rain they have falls from November to January and
that often the Dasht floods. But even when floods come, in only two or three days
the waters disappear from the surface. The few local people were illiterate farmers
who raised beans, some lentils, and a little corn. Everything else was imported.
There were no stable villages; their locations were constantly shifting, usually in
response to the availability of water. All the men had rifles and would come to the
aid of the small militia force in times of trouble.

Before Partition in 1947, under British rule, local chiefs in Makran and in
southeastern Iran were constantly feuding and the militia had a peace-keeping
mission. But in recent years the main job of the militia has been to patrol the border
to prevent smuggling. What a futile task! The open border areas were beyond the
capabilities of a dozen camel-riding militiamen to survail. From the top of Sutkagen
Dor you can see miles into Iran over virtually a featureless alluvial plain with
unlimited room for individuals or small groups to maneuver. But, on the other hand,
no sizeable land force could approach the border without being detected. The dust
alone would signal any such movement.

As for the continuation of our survey down the Dasht Valley to Jiwani,
Jahangir told us that the journey was about thirty-five miles by camel and fifty to
fifty-five miles by vehicle. The first stop on the map was Kalatu. He said the
remains of a fort of uncertain age were there. Beyond that was a dot on the map
called Gabd. We would find no village or bazaar there, but he assured us that there
was water.

Monday, October 17

The recording of Trench A-A/1 was completed by midday. It was a
ridiculously small operation given the size of the site, but it had provided
invaluable information about the occupation of the citadel. Cuyler and I were again
impressed by the neatness and orderliness of Mughal's excavation-a textbook
example of Wheelerian digging.

Barbara had a surprise for us when we returned to camp. The wizened old
chap who had worked for Stein back in 1928 and who had guided us to the site, had
brought her a skin of a full-grown cheetah. He said that it had recently been killed
in the mountains to the north. He asked 25 rupees ($5.25). She paid it so as to have

58

The Survey          59

proof of the existence of those splendid animals in the region. Most reports listed
them as endangered; and some said they were extinct.14
Tuesday, October 18

At 8:00 Cuyler, Mughal, and I took off on a foot survey of the general areas to
the east and south of the site. I sent Mughal off to investigate two valleys that we
could see clearly to the east. Cuyler and I headed south toward what we thought
from our ground-level vantage to be a huge mesa-like range. When we got to it,
however, we found that the "mesa" edge was really a knife ridge composed of water-
deposited stones. At the very peak of the ridge, the composition was of several
strata of white stones that showed evidence of having been intensively rolled and
smoothed. It was an amazing experience to stand on the tops of those ridges and gaze
at the surrounding chaotic scene of decayed and eroded, spongy-textured clays and
limestone in steep-sided heaps separated by deep erosion gullies (plate 30). Utterly
barren. We followed the ridges to their western end where the talus met the active
bed of the river. It seemed like a reasonable location for a site but none was found. As
we walked from there back toward the site, we did find occasional Harappan sherds
on the surface, but they had probably been washed out from the site and dispersed
randomly over the plain by centuries of water action.

An alarming situation arose when we arrived back at camp at 11:00 in
keeping with our pre-arranged schedule. Mughal had not yet returned. At 11:30,
Barbara and I hiked out to the top of the ridge south of the site to see if we could spot
him. No success. By then the temperature in the open sunlight was almost
unbearable. At 12:30, Cuyler and I headed out on separate paths in search of him,
and at 1:00 I heard a distant yell from Cuyler who was relaying the "All's well"
holler from Barbara back at camp. We returned to camp to find Mughal intact but
utterly exhausted. Instead of going to the valleys east of the site, he had gone north
to the Suntsar Customs post to ask about old remains and sites. Some fellow from
there had walked him about four miles to the northeast to see some "ruins" which
turned out to be remains of a recently abandoned small village. Mughal reported
seeing three small pools of water in the valley to the north of the Sutkagen Dor-one
at least four feet deep-but found nothing of archaeological significance. He
somehow got a camel ride back to camp. We were all, including Mughal, relieved
and also disappointed that in spite of the strenuous efforts, we had failed to discover
any new sites.

Later in the afternoon, we were visited by a Major Montaz, head of Customs
for the Gwadar-Pasni-Turbat area. His main concern was with smuggling. He had
heard that we were in the area and made a special effort to check into our well
being. He spoke good English and was refreshingly open and friendly. He expressed
amazement that Americans would be traveling by camel, especially with a woman!
He went on to give his men from the Custom's post a stern lecture about all this: some
of the men had refused to ride camels, demanding a vehicle from the government. He
told them in no uncertain terms that we were an example of why America was such a
great country-a country whose people still had the pioneering spirit. (To be
truthful, we "pioneers" would have been quite happy to make use of four-wheeled
vehicles and even helicopters had they been available.) The major offered some
helpful travel information and invited us to use his facilities at Pasni.

Militia Commander Jahangir and two of his assistants joined us at camp for
dinner. Sitting on a mat by the tents, we enjoyed rice, goat curry, and a rice and sugar

Explorations on the Makran Coast

pudding put together by Noor. We were invited to dinner the following day at the
fort.

Wednesday, October 19

We devoted the day to completing the records and drawings, to letter
writing, and to packing. Jahangir sent us a message by camel courier. Because of
fighting that had erupted among some people in his area, he would not be able to
host dinner for us. As compensation, he sent a roasted leg of venison, some rice, and
chapattis for our dinner. It was a most welcome and appreciated gesture. We
thoroughly enjoyed the food, although there was a lingering mood of
disappointment.

Our work had gone well, and, given the limitations imposed on what we
could do archaeologically at the site, we were satisfied.  The excavated
architecture, pottery, and artifacts allowed us to make an absolute cultural
connection between this remote coastal site and the Mature Indus civilization. We
were, of course, disappointed that we had not made a significant discovery bearing
on the question of Indus-Near East contacts. But most of the survey was still ahead of
us.

Thursday, October 20

The seven camels and two drivers had arrived sometime during the night,
and we were up at 5:30. Packing up the tents and loading the equipment and supplies
on the camels went quickly, and we were on our way south toward the coast by 7:45.
We started out by following the dusty motor road used by the militia supply truck,
but we were able to take short cuts since our camels were more sure-footed than their
vehicle was maneuverable in the soft, sandy patches of the plain.

About 9:30 we had arrived at the western edge of the ridges that ran east-
west south of the site. Suddenly Mughal, with no comment, jumped off his camel and
took off at a fast clip toward the west with the binoculars. I dismounted and set out
after him thinking that he might have spotted a site. I failed to discuss my action
with the rest of the team and just expected them to halt and await our return. When
I caught up with Mughal, we went on together to examine the feature, but it turned
out to be just another of those deceiving natural ridges, devoid of human remains.

We walked quickly back to where we had left our party, but the camels were
nowhere in sight. So, we started walking, following their path, hoping to soon catch
up with them. We walked and walked and walked. By 11:30 we were exhausted
from the intense heat and still no sign of them. Had we missed their path? Why
hadn't they stopped and waited for us? We did not even have a canteen of water
with us.

We were about ready to sit out the sun for a few hours when along came a
truck on its way to Jiwani. We hitched a ride. As we drove over a natural ridge we
spotted, about one mile ahead, our camel caravan. In less than a happy mood, we
rejoined them and continued on to Kalatu (figure 8; plate 31). There we found a small
grove of trees under which we cooled off literally and figuratively, and had
sandwiches and plenty of water. After an hour and a half rest, Cuyler, Mughal, and
I walked about one and a half miles to see the "fort." It was a peculiar ruin-a
square, mudbrick sort of tower perched on top of a small, eroded sandstone outcrop out
in the middle of the immense, flat alluvial plain. Quite obviously the original
"fort" had been larger, and its outer structures had collapsed with the erosion of the

60

The Survey           61

outcrop upon which they had been built. There is not even an entrance way
remaining. What is its date?

Figure 8     Map of Jiwani and Dasht Kaur

Around the base of the outcrop we found the remains of structures whose
walls were constructed of crude wooden stakes that had been stuck into the ground
and plastered with mud. There was a lot of broken pottery-hand-formed cooking
wares and finely painted sherds from vessels that looked like modern Sindi pottery
(black painted designs on red slip with much mica in the paste), glazed china, pieces
of copper in thin sheets, iron, and glass. Certainly the structures dated to the turn of
the century, if not earlier, because the place is mentioned in the travel accounts of
British officers. For example, Captain R. B. Lockwood who explored the Dasht
Valley in 1877 (see MacGregor 1882:78) described "Kulatu" as consisting of "a few
matting huts" situated one mile south of the river. "It has a conspicuous mud tower
perched on the top of a fifty foot high mud hill overhanging the village."

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Water was available, as we had been told by Jahangir. Also, one small shop
sold cigarettes and a miscellaneous collection of products such as needles, pins,
thread, and cotton strings for holding up the voluminous trousers worn by the people
in that area. We learned from some local people that this was actually the site of
the original village of Kalatu up until about twenty-five years ago when an
epidemic forced the settlement to relocate to a place some one and a half miles north,
closer to the riverbed.

At 3:00 we were refreshed enough to remount the camels for a two and a half
hour ride through a mild sandstorm across the featureless plain to Gabd on the east
bank of the Dasht. It was a fairly sizeable reed hut village (plate 32) with a
surprising number of animals (cattle, donkeys, chickens, sheep). There was also
plenty of water in the Dasht. The bed was only about seventy-five-yards wide
there, and the water was about five feet deep in the middle. The people told us that
the water continued a mile or so farther north to "new" Kalatu which we bypassed on
one of our shortcuts. Availing ourselves of the water at Gabd, we took real baths for
the first time in two weeks. After setting up a makeshift camp-using just our cots
and sleeping bags-in a grove of trees at the southeast corner of the village, we
settled down to a much appreciated evening under the stars.
Friday, October 21

After a fine sleep, we awoke, cold and damp, to a special breakfast prepared
by Noor. He had purchased eggs and fresh cow's milk from the village. After
breakfast we walked about a quarter of a mile east from our camp to the location of
"Old Gabd." Some twenty-five years ago the village had shifted to its present
location closer to the river to improve its water supply. It was interesting to see
what remained of an abandoned village: many animal bones, sherds, numerous stones
of all sizes and shapes, pieces of glass-practically no archaeological "tell" at all
(plate 33).

We resumed travel south for about twelve miles until 12:30 when we veered
off the trail about half a mile to visit a major water hole marked on our maps-
Chatani Bal. If we had been counting on obtaining water here, we would have been
seriously disappointed. The depression, some fifty feet across, was bone dry!
Fortunately, we had an adequate water supply and only a short distance to go before
reaching Jiwani. After a light lunch and some rest, we resumed our trek at 2:30. By
5:30 we had reached the northern edge of the so-called "swamp"-a large area of
grasses, small shrubs, numerous ponds, and soft sandy stretches. Not wanting to enter
the area that late in the day, we stopped and set up camp about thirty yards from a
lone scraggy tree, the only one we had seen since leaving Gabd. To the south and
southeast we could make out a huge ridge of fantastically eroded mud and limestone
that created the image of a fairyland city in the waning light.
Saturday, October 22

Soaking wet and cold, we arose in the dark at 5:30, had a chilly breakfast,
and loaded the camels for a 6:30 start, just before sunrise. For the first hour and a
half, it remained uncomfortably chilly, damp, and misty as we plodded through the
"swamp." Some five miles north of Jiwani town, we came upon a neatly trimmed,
freshly painted wooden bungalow. Surprised, we stopped and yelled "hello." A
good-looking, young Pakistani fellow appeared on the porch and greeted us. Safdar
Manzoor was the local maintenance representative for Burmah-Shell Oil Company.

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The Survey           63

Plate 30   Sutkagen Dor: Cuyler Young exploring decayed ridges south of the site

Plate 31  Rafique Mughal examining the remains of Old Kalatu, Dasht Valley

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Plate 32    Village of Gabd, Dasht Valley

Ruined mosque at Old Gabd

64

Plate 33

The Survey           65

His duty was to refuel and service planes that stopped at the small airstrip. Many
commercial and military planes did not have the range to fly non-stop from the
Near East to Pakistan or India, so fuel stops like this were essential.

He invited us to stay at his bungalow-an invitation we did not hesitate to
accept. After resting until 3:30, the Civil Aviation jeep picked us up and took us into
Jiwani, a town of some 3,000 people. We were taken to meet the tahsildar, Abu Bakr,
with whom we spent considerable time seeking local information about travel and
possible ancient sites. Some village elders who remembered Stein's 1927 visit to the
area were brought in. They described in detail how to find Lak Plateau where Stein
had found, and partially excavated, 200 burial cairns. Those, we knew from Stein's
publication, had nothing to do with the Indus civilization, but much had been
written about their possible identification with a southern wave of Indo-Aryan
invaders. So, we were interested in seeing them for ourselves.

With the exception of some ruins just southwest of Jiwani and two cemeteries
to the south, the elders knew of no other ancient remains in the area. We asked them
specifically about a place called Take-dap, between Ras Jiwani and Ras Ganj, where
Stein had discovered some burials that interested us. They did not know the name
but surmised that the place must be what they called Daran. The tahsildar
promised to arrange to have camels to take us there the next morning.

After the obligatory tea, the tahsildar and his party walked us over to the
"ruins" on top of a sandy hill just to the southwest of the main part of the town.
There were a few badly weathered sandstone blocks carved into rough pillar form.
These pillars may have originally been parts of an old abandoned mosque, but we did
not have time to investigate them.

On our way back to the bungalow, we stopped briefly at Lak Plateau. Sure
enough, we could see the remains of the stone burial cairns that both Mockler and
Stein had reported. We would return to see them in more detail.
Sunday, October 23

Since the camels promised by the tahsildar didn't arrive on time, we hired
some from a local man who "just happened to have some for hire." They weren't very
good-looking beasts, but we had no choice. At 8:30 Cuyler, Mughal, and I headed out
to search for Take-dap. Some twenty minutes after we left, the tahsildar's camels
arrived at the bungalow. They caught up with us about half way to the airport.
They were much better camels than the ones we had hired, so we switched to them
and gave the local man five rupees for his trouble.

They were really fine riding camels. We no sooner got on them than they
took off at a fast trot. It was a riot; we couldn't stop them. We trotted across the
runway and out to the area called Daran. The surface of the Jiwani promontory was
described accurately by Stein as barren, calcareous rock. Our camels had no difficulty
in crossing it.

We halted the camels at the top edge of the western side of the valley
which, according to our maps, was called Take-dap. The scene in front of us was
formidable. The western side of the valley consisted of sheer cliffs of crumbling,
unstable calcareous stone (plate 34). We could see, about a quarter of a mile to the
south, the beach at the mouth of the river (there was no bay or inlet). The main
valley forked into two smaller branches. The western branch continued in a general
northerly direction, and the eastern one wound northeasterly for a mile up to the
"village" called Daran. We found, however, that the name Take-dap was used not

Explorations on the Makran Coast

just for this plateau and valley but also for two more sets to the east of this one. We
numbered them 1, 2, and 3 from west to east (figure 9).

Figure 9     Map of Jiwani Head

While on the valley rim of Take-dap #1, we walked out to the end of the
promontory where it dropped off sharply to the sea (plate 35). No stone circles or
other structures were in sight. Several more deep ravines were visible to the west
and there were clearly two more to the east. Inland, back of the coastal
promontories, the relatively flat land sloped up gradually to the north.

The trail down into the valley was extremely rugged. The camels were led
down safely; we were in awe of their ability to walk on those steep, crumbling
surfaces. It was doubtful that horses could have managed it, and it would have been
difficult for us on foot.

Between Take-dap #1 and #2, where the valley forked into the two
branches, there were two reed-mat-on-wood frame huts (plate 36). We met one
woman and six or seven tiny children there. She offered virtually no useful
information except indicating that graves of some sort were up the valley in the
direction of Daran.

Going up the eastern valley about a quarter of a mile, we encountered an
abandoned well. The first quarter mile was narrow and twisty, but then the valley
opened out into fairly level and open country except for the western edge which was
bounded by the high cliff of the ridge that divides the overall valley. At Daran we

66

The Survey           67

Plate 34     Terrain at Take-dap Valley, Jiwani; looking inland from the top of

the west ridge

Rocky coastline at Ras Jiwani, looking east

Plate 35

Explorations on the Makran Coast

found three reed huts with a couple of women and several children. They also were
not able, or willing, to provide us with useful information.

Just east of the huts we saw several small agricultural fields. Not more than
another quarter mile from the huts, going east, we came to a rough, rocky spot where
the trail went up over a difficult pass into the next valley. At the base of that trail,
on the right side, was a small group of Islamic graves in the form of crude rings of
stones, or in a couple of instances, rectangles of stones. Upright stones were situated
at the north and south ends of each circle. The local calcareous stone used for
constructing the circles made the monuments difficult to see against the natural
background. That use of stone circles for what were most certainly Islamic burials
demonstrated a local continuity in construction that goes back well before Islamic
times.

The trail taxed the camels dexterity to the limit, but not once did they slip
or falter. Upon reaching the top, we stopped for a quick lunch beneath some acacia
trees. Then, leaving the camels there, we climbed up the steep side of the
promontory we called Take-dap #2. From the top we could see far in every direction,
but all was desolation. We decided to follow the valley to the seashore and climb up
to the top of the next promontory to the east. But first, we returned to where we had
left the camels and questioned our camel driver and the levyman (an armed guard
sent with us by the tahsildar) about the region. They told us that that valley was
called both Take-dap and Daran. It seemed that Take-dap simply meant something
like "doorway to a high place," actually a perfect descriptive term for those valleys
that afford the only access from the seacoast to the plateau. But that information
offered little help in solving some of our topographic problems.

We rode toward the beach. In the dry riverbed, we came upon an oasis which
consisted of a hole about one meter across, dug through the solid rock (plate 37). The
water level was about three meters below the top of the hole. A small herd of cattle
and another of goats were drinking the precious fluid from troughs that had been
hollowed out of local stones. Two men with buckets tied to ropes were filling the
troughs from the well. Our camels took over one of the troughs, and we filled our
nearly empty canteens. The water had a slightly brackish taste but was more than
welcome.

At the beach, we again left our camels and climbed to the top of the
promontory to the east side of the valley that we called Take-dap #3. On top, we
followed the southern edge to the northeast for quite a ways but then had to cut
inland to get around numerous small, but deep, erosion gullies. We were quite high
there, but we thought a still higher ridge to our north would be the actual top of the
promontory. Up and up we climbed until we came upon the remains of a temporary
bench mark near the southeast tip of the Jiwani Plateau.

A small bump in the surface of the plateau prevented us from seeing the
small fishing village of Ganz on the coast. Fortunately, the sky was clear and we got
a good view of the coastline to the east: steep, sheer cliffs all the way to the low
extension of land that went out to Pishukan. But haze in the distance prevented us
from seeing Gwadar as we had hoped we might be able to do.

We were convinced that Stein's Take-dap graves were not in the area we had
covered that day. His map and descriptions were practically useless in that
wasteland. We returned to the camels and proposed to the camel driver that we ride
westward along the beach to the first Take-dap Valley we had visited. We started
out in that direction but the camels would have no part of the pounding surf. They

68

The Survey

j?i

C

Plate 36

Reed mat huts in Take-dap Valley, Jiwani

Water hole near Take-dap Valley, Jiwani

69

Plate 37

Explorations on the Makran Coast

preferred to return the way they had come, so we retraced our trail up and down the
rough paths over which we had plodded earlier in the day.

Our return trip from the beach started at 2:30. At 4:00 we were again on top of
the promontory along the eastern edge of the first Take-dap Valley and ready to
head back to the bungalow. The ground surface was relatively flat and our camels
took off at full trot. The fast, jolting went on for fifty uninterrupted minutes. The
speed was admirable, but the price in shaken bones was hardly worth it. We felt
like disarticulated skeletons held together in human form by raw nerves. Upon
reaching the bungalow, we paid-off the camel driver: 8 rupees ($1.68) for each of the
camels for the entire day.

It had been a most strenuous day with virtually nothing to show for it except
that we could truthfully say that we had seen, and experienced, most of the
southeastern part of the peninsula.
Monday, October 24

We struggled to get up in the morning, finding ourselves stiff as could be from
the previous day's camel rides. But at 8:00 all of us, except the cook, headed out on
foot for Lak Plateau to investigate the 200-odd burial cairns reported by Mockler
(1877:132-33) and Stein (1931:77-82) (figures 10 and 11 here). It took only half an
hour to reach the top of the steep, northern edge of the plateau. The footpath that
led to Jiwani came up onto the plateau near the center of Stein's Area III at the
eastern end of the cairn field. We split up so as to examine as many of the cairns as
possible.

Map: Lak Plateau and burial cairns

70

Figure 10

The Survey            71

A

6
.5

7         8 j

Figure 11    Burial cairns and pottery described by Mockler (Mockler 1877)

Barbara and I concentrated on Stein's Area III. At only two of the many stone
circles did we find sherds (plate 38). On the surface of one of them, Barbara found a
small copper finger ring (plate 42,a) and part of a pottery canteen such as had been
described by both Mockler (1877:120, figure 8) and Stein (1931:plates VIII-IX). Its
outer face was painted with red and black geometric designs (figure 13; plates 39 and
40). At other surface locations around the burial cairns, we found a copper
rectangular plate (plate 42,b) and a painted, terra-cotta animal figurine (plate 41).-
Associated with other burial cairns in Area III, we found more painted sherds (plate
43) and three incised sherds (plate 44).

At another circle, I found several sherds of a painted vessel that had black
and red hook designs painted on a white slip (figure 12; plate 45). That motif is quite
common at the Jiwani sites and at other sites in southern Baluchistan. The date of
the pottery and of the stone burial circles was not at all certain. Nor was their
presence in these remote regions understood. There were theories about them
representing the southern invasion route of the Indo-Aryans sometime in the second
millennium B.C., but there was no proof.15

Mughal found sherds at only two circles in Area IV-a couple of nicely
painted sherds similar to the ones we had found (plate 46). Cuyler looked in Area V
and in the west end of Area III. He found only half of a tri-foil pottery spout with a
painted rim, certainly post-Harappan, and common by the time of the Iron Age in
that part of the world. Stone circles along the east edge of Area IV and the
southwest edge of Area III were tumbling down the eroding face of the cliff.

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Plate 38

Burial cairn

on Lak Plateau,

probably opened

by Mockler or Stein

Top view of pottery canteen from burial cairns, Lak Plateau, Jiwani

72

Plate 39

The Survey           73

Plate 40

Pottery canteen

from burial cairns,

Lak Plateau, Jiwani

Painted terra-cotta animal figurine found near burial cairns,

Lak Plateau, Jiwani

Plate 41

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Plate 42   a) Copper ring and b) Thin copper plate found at burial cairns,

Lak Plateau, Jiwani

74

The Survey          75

Painted sherds found near burial cairns, Lak Plateau, Jiwani;
upper left sherd has black-painted decorations, the other
two have red-painted decorations

Incised sherds found near burial cairns, Lak Plateau, Jiwani

Plate 43

Plate 44

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Fragments of "Londo Ware" vessel from burial cairns,

Lak Plateau, Jiwani

Plate 46    Sherd of "Londo Ware" from burial cairns, Lak Plateau, Jiwani

Plate 45

76

The Survey          77

WMXX RED PAINT

0  1                  ecms

"Londo" pottery from Lak Plateau burial cairns

Scale 1:1

Q 1

Pottery canteen from Lak Plateau burial cairns

We all walked over to Areas I and II, across the lower level, the flat sandy
Area VI. It appeared that most of those circles were not dug into by Stein. We
opened one of the circles in Area II by removing the stones from the collapsed
superstructure and found it completely empty except for pieces of sandstone resting on
a thin layer of clean sand covering the natural rock surface.

We were discouraged-again; no new evidence to help in the cultural
identification or dating of those enigmatic structures. Were they really burial cairns
or more like cenotaphs? Stein reported finding only scattered bone fragments, some of
which we saw in his dump piles.

Figure 12

Figure 13

Q cms

-                     -

Explorations on the Makran Coast

The western end of the plateau was a snake's paradise. The wavy tracks of
small snakes were everywhere. I accidentally flushed out a vicious, little saw-
scaled viper (Echis carinatus). It was shockingly aggressive and made a loud rasping
sound as it literally chased me. So that was the live, deadly counterpart of the
viper I had first seen pickled in a bottle at the Mintons' home in Karachi.

We walked out to the extreme western edge of the plateau and descended the
crumbling edge to the beach. Dead lobsters and other creatures littered the beach
which had curiously porous sand-almost like quicksand. The water, beautiful in
color, was full of crabs, jellyfish, sea snakes, and even a swordfish that came close
enough to shore for us to identify. Giant sea turtles were also plentiful. We followed
the beach to a small fishing community just south of the Burmah-Shell bungalow.
Near the village were large salt pits in which fish were cured for export to Karachi
and Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). That was certainly one of the vilest smelling places we
had ever experienced.

By the time we reached the bungalow we were exhausted, but after lunch
Barbara mustered up enough energy to go to the airport with Safdar. That was a
special day for Jiwani Airstrip. Two bright red British planes landed-part of the
"Queen's Own" squadron making a trial run from England to South Asia in
preparation for a trip by the queen in January. Aboard were various high officials
and the queen's private secretary. Barbara was not permitted to see the insides of
the planes but was allowed to approach and touch them.

The normal schedule at Jiwani Airstrip was the landing of one Pakistan
International Airways supply plane on the fourth of every month. Otherwise, it
served as an emergency landing and fueling stop and as a radio checkpoint for all
east-west transcontinental flights between the Near East and South/Southeast Asia.
The longest runway-unpaved-was only 5,500 feet long. The manager told us that
the largest ship to land at Jiwani had been a Lockheed Constellation. Before coming
to Pakistan, we had been in communication with one notable pilot, Lowell Thomas,
Jr., son of the famous adventurer/newsman. He and his wife had landed at Jiwani
during their round-the-world flight in a small private plane.

We declared a "holiday" for the afternoon and evening: being truly worn out.
Tuesday, October 25

After arising at 6:30 and enjoying a breakfast of freshly cooked chapattis,
honey, and tea, we mounted our camels for another day of exploring. That day the
camels came equipped with stirrups, a real help especially when going downhill.
Leaving at 7:40, we headed again out past the airport to the Take-dap Plateau area.
It took us more than an hour this time. We were so stiff and sore that we could not
endure the full trot-only the shuffle trot. We reappraised the situation but could
not satisfy ourselves as to how we had missed locating the Take-dap burial cairns
the day before.

We turned our attention next to the valleys farther west along the coast. We
had only to go to the next promontory to convince ourselves that we were going the
wrong direction to locate archaeological sites. Nonetheless, we decided to continue
on to Ras Jiwani and to complete the survey of the coastal strip. The valleys turned
into rough irregular ravines with no definite limits. On the west side of each valley
was a rather abrupt cliff and on the east side the land rose gently, like a tilted
tabletop, until it dropped off sharply and formed the western side of the next valley
to the east.

78

The Survey           79

As we approached nearer to Ras Jiwani, the land became relatively flat
with the main angle of the table top tipping down as we went inland from the
coastal cliff. The Ras, as marked on the maps, was actually only a small but rugged
clump of rock that was rapidly being undermined by the action of the surf. We
observed numerous giant sea turtles swimming near the base of the cliff. The
tableland leading out to the Ras is absolutely barren flat rock most of the way.

About two miles north of the Ras, as we headed toward the village of
Jiwani, we passed around the west end of two parallel east-west ridges with steep,
crumbling sides and flat tops. We stopped beneath three giant banyan trees just in
back of the government Rest House (at the south extreme end of the village) for a
light lunch. We then walked some 400 yards to the west-southwest to see some old
Muslim graves. They consisted of multiple platforms, each higher one being smaller
in size. A rectangular structure topped them, and the entire monument was covered
with white plaster. The ten monuments, in a single row, were in poor condition, and
there was no apparent indication of their precise age.

We then walked back toward the Rest House and continued in a straight line
for another couple hundred yards to the southeast corner of the town. There was a
very large modem cemetery, jammed with perhaps 1,000 graves each consisting of a
rectangular pile of rough stones with a single rough stone placed more or less erect at
the head and foot. All the graves were oriented north-south as they must be there to
allow the face of the deceased to look to Mecca.

On top of the ridge, immediately south of the present cemetery, we visited a
large area also containing Muslim burials. These graves were peculiar in having only
a single flat, roughly rectangular monolithic stone laid flat over each of them. The
age of those burials was uncertain as was the reason for their different structure from
those seen in the modern cemetery.

Failing to find any unreported ancient remains in the area, we went to see the
Customs Inspector, Mr. Kamal, who agreed to arrange for a boat to take us to Gwadar
the next day. The only thing available would be a sailboat. We questioned two more
old-timers in his office. Like every government office we visited in Makran, a coterie
of aged men was seated around the official's desk, smoking incessantly, saying little,
but always available to advise the government official about local matters. They
knew of no ancient remains in the area except the stone circles on Lak Plateau.

On our way back to the bungalow, we stopped again at Lak Plateau to have
another look around but failed to find anything significant. Never had I remembered
being so tired and miserably sore as when we arrived at the bungalow at 4:30; the
others felt the same. We decided to postpone our Gwadar trip for one day to allow us
to rest up a bit. Our accommodations were perfectly comfortable, and just one day
would not unduly disrupt our schedule.
Wednesday, October 26

We all slept in until after 7:00; sweet sleep but the muscles were still sore,
and we all were relieved that we were not going to Gwadar that day. I wrote
lengthy letters to Dr. Khan in Karachi and to Dr. Rainey, director of the University
Museum. Cuyler and I worked on a sketch map of our exploration of the Lak Plateau.
Other than that, plus a little packing for tomorrow, the morning was just restful.

After lunch, Barbara, Safdar, and I went to the beach near the bungalow for
a swim (we had brought bathing suits in anticipation of such an opportunity). The
water was delightful with a clean sandy bottom, but we had to go out nearly a
hundred yards to get into water deep enough for swimming. The swarms of jellyfish

Explorations on the Makran Coast

that we had seen on previous days were not present; otherwise it would have been
quite foolish to go into the water.

After a very pleasant fresh fish dinner, we were entertained by Mughal who
read our palms. He appeared to take it seriously, but it was obvious that he was
telling us exactly what we wanted to hear. After he described to us how the lines in
our hands constantly change (fingerprints too?), we got involved in a fascinating
discussion about fate, destiny, and other such lofty subjects. (Being out in such remote
areas often brings on such discussions.) A cool, breezy moonlit evening-a topper for a
very enjoyable, though archaeologically disappointing, stay at Jiwani.
Thursday, October 27

At 9:00 the Civil Aviation truck picked us up and took us to the beach just
south of Jiwani village where we were introduced to the boat and crew that would
take us the forty-five or so miles east to Gwadar. The boat was typical of the small
sailing craft called "hora" used by many of the coastal fishermen (plate 47). The
hull, virtually keelless, was about twenty-five feet long with a six-foot beam. The
single mast slanted forward at a considerable angle to allow the movement of the
triangular lateen sail. The bamboo boom of the sail was suspended by a single rope
from the top of the mast allowing the sail to be swung a complete 360 degrees. Those
lateen sails were ancient in origin and had certain advantages given the right wind,
but tacking was a very inefficient operation.

Plate 47     Coastal fishing boat of 'hora" type

The five of us with our mounds of baggage, the crew of four, and another
passenger fit neatly into the craft (plate 48). A small area just forward of the
helmsman, who actually sat on the stern, was covered with a rug and was quite
comfortable-at first-for two or three of us at a time, except for the inconvenience
caused by the crews water keg being stored beneath the deck boards. There was
constant shuffling of bodies.

A plank about twelve feet long was placed across the top of the gunwales just
aft of the mast. If the boat heeled over uncomfortably to either side, the plank was
pushed out the opposite side and one of the crew crawled out on it to provide a
counterweight.

After agreeing to pay 100 rupees ($27.00) for the trip, we shoved off for
Gwadar at 10:50. The breeze was weak, and it took an hour and a quarter to get

80

The Survey

Sailing from Jiwani to Gwadar

81

Plate 48

Explorations on the Makran Coast

around Ras Jiwani and head east. Just after leaving Jiwani, we came abreast of a
larger fishing boat returning from its overnight fishing trip. Our crew yelled for some
fresh fish and half a dozen fish were tossed into our boat as we passed by. To our
terror, twice during the sail to Gwadar, our crew lit up a charcoal fire in a small brick
enclosure on the deck in the bow to cook rice and those fish.

Toilet facilities didn't exist-a problem in any case, but made more difficult
with a woman aboard. The procedure was for the person requiring relief to ask the
helmsman to go forward so that the relieving could be done over the stern; no mean
feat when having to hang on with one hand as the boat rose, fell, and heeled in the
ocean swells. All of that required a considerable amount of stomping over us and our
baggage. Stalwart Barbara held out until just after sunset. Then Cuyler, Mughal,
and I sat in a tightly packed line across the stern of the boat to provide her a bit of
privacy. We were extremely grateful that none of us got seasick or, even worse, came
down with diarrhea.

Because of the light breeze, we had ample opportunity to observe the coast
from a different perspective than we had seen during the previous days (plate 49).
The boat stayed close to the cliffs for about half the sail along the Jiwani
promontory. After another two hours we were abreast of Ras Ganz and about half a
mile offshore. We got quite a different impression of the promontory and its valleys
leading to the sea. Take-dap Valleys #1 and #2 didn't look anywhere near as rugged
as they actually were. The tilting up of the surface rock tables at the east sides of
the valleys was much plainer to see from the sea. Also, between the Take-dap
Valleys we saw two, relatively small, incipient valleys that we had not noticed
from the land perspective.

Near the sea cliffs of the tilted-up, eastern side of Take-dap Valley #1, we
saw through our binoculars the burial cairns that might have been the ones called
Take-dap by Stein. Large bushes were in the same area; bushes which we had noted
from the top of the cliffs west of that valley the first day of our survey. So, it was
quite possible that we had located the cairns after all, but there was no opportunity
remaining to examine them.

As we passed Ras Ganz, we could see the little valley where the village was
supposed to be, according to the maps, but we could not actually spot it. The coastal
range, with its sheer cliffs, gradually decreased in elevation until it petered out into
sandy outcrops about three-quarters of the way to Pishukan. Pishukan consists of
two, small, uplifted platforms, with cliffs fifty to sixty feet high that form rocky
headlands separated by a small pocket beach (Snead 1969:12). The platforms are
composed of Pleistocene conglomerates and shelly limestones. The bay is well
sheltered from the westerly winds but too shallow for use even by the smallest boats.

By the time we had reached Pishukan-about 6:00 P.M.-we had finally
picked up a decent southwest breeze that pushed us the rest of the way to Gwadar
Head at a good clip. As the sun set and the breeze picked up even more, the tedious
journey was transformed into a delightful moonlit sail. We could hardly have spent
a more pleasant few hours. But we missed seeing the coast itself, which between
Pishukan and Gwadar is a gently curving, seventy-seven-mile-long, eight-mile-wide
bay. The entire bay is treacherous because of its extreme shallowness and because it
is an active area for the appearance of mud volcanoes (figure 14). Most recently, a
small mud "island" emerged off the coast during the 1945 earthquake (Pendse 1948;
Sondhi 1947; Snead 1964, 1967, and 1969).16

A damp mist enveloped us as we approached West Gwadar Bay and
visibility was almost zero. But the boat struck the sand off the beach at 9:00,

82

The Survey           83

Figure 14    Map of Gwadar region

directly west of the old Mockler house-just as we had requested. Because of the
shallow water, the sail was hauled in and the boat was pushed backwards as far as
possible toward the beach. The tide was out and the surf gentle so we had about fifty
feet to wade to the beach. The crew carried ashore our bedrolls and Noor's basic
kitchen supplies.

It was too late to contact the tahsildar, so I sent Cuyler up to the old Mockler
house to see what condition it was in. When we stayed there during our first nights
of the survey, workers were tearing off the roof and generally making a mess. He
reported back that its poor condition made it unsafe for us to try to move into it in the
dark, so we set up a temporary camp on the beach.

It wasn't long until our miracle-working cook served up a delicious mutton
curry and rice dinner, topped off with hot cups of bouillon; then to bed with full
stomachs and our imaginations freshly renewed with the excitement of actually
being on the Makran coast. Lying on the beach, snug in my sleeping bag, I had a
genuine feeling of the "romance of archaeology" that is so glibly talked about in the
popular press. It was easy to conjure up images of Harappan ships and of Alexander
the Great's navy passing by in the mist.

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Friday, October 28

We awoke at 6:30, our bedding thoroughly wet from the mist. The low-lying
fog limited visibility on the beach to a few meters, but we were fascinated to see the
images of what appeared to be a couple of trunkless palm trees and a legless camel
float on top of the fog. Snug in our sleeping bags, we could see the mist-shrouded
movements of Noor as he prepared our breakfasts against the background of the boat
crew carrying our baggage ashore through the gentle surf (plate 50).

After breakfast, Cuyler, Mughal, and I walked to the tahsildar's house-a
modest, whitewashed stone structure with an enclosed courtyard. He informed us
that the old Mockler Rest House was being repaired to be made into the office of the
local Public Work Department. A new three-room Rest House was located just
northwest of the old one, but the district judge from Kalat and his staff were staying
there just then (plates 6 and 7). So, he arranged for porters to lug our baggage over to
the old Mockler house and sent a couple of men ahead to clean out the ground floor for
us. The entire roof had been torn off, so there was a formidable mess. But within an
hour, two rooms on the ground floor, the washroom, and the verandah were cleaned
up, and large rugs were put in place. Tables, chairs, and even a bookcase were brought
up from the village. It was quite a delightful situation made even more pleasant by
a fine, steady breeze to keep us comfortably cool.

After lunch we walked through the town: a couple of main, unpaved streets
intersected by narrow, twisting alleys, and lined with cramped, little, open-fronted
shops. Awnings made from what appeared to be used sails were draped over the
streets to provide shade from the intense sun (plate 51).

An astonishing selection of products was displayed on the shelves or in dirty
glass cabinets. Some shops offered outdated medications: bottles containing pink or
creamy colored liquids with faded labels describing the medicinal wonders that
would bless your body if you used the product. Other shops had bolts of cloth, only
three or four,that provided a limited choice of colors and patterns. One shop had a
bolt of Chinese silk, one of the popular smuggled items along the coast.

Then there were the jewelry shops: bare-walled and unfumished except for a
small glass cabinet at the front of the shop displaying the elaborate gold and silver
ornaments characteristic of Baluchistan. The craftsmanship was superb, and the
quality of the metals was first rate. Barbara purchased silver bangles and a set of
gold earrings, consisting of clusters of gold cubes. The jewelry surpassed in beauty and
quality anything in today's markets in Pakistan.

Other shops had metal products that were hammered out on the spot. Also,
there were shops full of painted pottery imported from Karachi. Children were
ubiquitous-all smiling and curious in spite of their squalid appearance (plate 52).

Tucked in among the buildings in the center of the village, and towering over
them, was a circular, whitewashed turret that had belonged to the old Portuguese
fort (plate 53). It was topped by a crenellated parapet beneath which were tall,
thin gun slots. We were curious to see the inside of the tower because of the
description we had read of it in the Baluchistan Gazetteer, but, as happens so often
in this part of the world, the only man with the only key was in Karachi, or Kabul,
or some other distant locale.

From the village we walked south to the foot of Gwadar Head, the huge,
uplifted rocky platform that is connected to the mainland by a five-mile-long sand
spit (tolombo). We erred in walking along the beach on the east side of the spit. The

84

The Survey          85

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Explorations on the Makran Coast

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stench of the fish almost made us turn back. The beach was littered with severed
shark heads, whole dead stingrays, and entrails of innumerable other fish-just
horrid! The fish processing industry located there could be tolerated only in such a
remote place. Farther south along the beach we encountered the salt preparation
pans (figure 15, #2; plate 54) where sea water was brought up from deep wells on the
spot, poured into waterways that fed into small, mud-sided squares (about six feet
square and five inches deep), and allowed to evaporate. Sizeable quantities of pure
salt are deposited and then collected into smooth dome-shaped piles three to four
feet high. Most of the salt was used locally to cure the fish.

The cemetery (figure 15, #1 and #4)-or rather, cemeteries-are in a
dramatic setting with the cathedral-like face of the 476-foot-high bluff serving as
background. We examined the old (fifteenth-sixteenth century) Chaukundi-type
tomb described by Stein (1931:figure 19). It was identical to those lovely carved stone
monuments in the huge cemetery east of Karachi. A high mudbrick wall enclosed
part of the cemetery. Within the enclosure, in addition to the graves, was an orange-
colored building. We were told that it was an Ismaili cemetery. The two tall,
pagoda-like buildings that dominated the village skyline were Ismaili offices.
Followers of the Agha Khan appeared to hold the wealth in Gwadar.
Saturday, October 29

Cuyler, Mughal, and I headed out at 8:00 to explore the central and western
half of the head. On the way we stopped at the Customs House to enquire about the
availability of boats or vehicles for the continuation of our survey, but the Customs
officer who might possibly have had such information was not yet in. So, we
continued walking another mile and a quarter, past the cemetery and the salt pans,
to the start of the steep, winding path that led to the top of the 476-foot-high head.
For us, it was a difficult ascent, and we were chagrined when we saw that village
women with water pots, and men and small boys with donkeys and water cans did
this, with apparent ease, every day.

The head consists of Pliocene-Pleistocene marine conglomerates and shelly
limestone. The top surface is virtually flat, dipping down three degrees to the
southwest (Snead 1969:12). At the top of the head-the Batel Plateau, described by
Stein (1931:73-74; figure 23)-was the only source of sweet water in the Gwadar area.
From the top of the path, the rocky surface sloped down gently to the west for about a
quarter of a mile where it ended in a veritable oasis, the water reservoir. The
infrequent rainwaters would run down the rocky slope and funnel into a narrow valley
running south to the sea. Remains of an old dam-Stein suggested that it was
probably sixteenth-seventeenth century Portuguese17 (figure 15, #17; plate 56)-
crossed the narrow defile. It was preserved to a height of about six feet. The dam's
construction was interesting. The upstream and downstream faces consisted of a single
vertical wall of carved sandstone blocks fitted together with tongue-and-groove and
other complex joints carved into each block. Between these facing walls, which were
about thirty-five feet apart, was rubble fill.

Three modern wells, said to have been dug when Gwadar was ruled by
Muscat, were a few yards in front of the uphill side of the dam. Some thirty yards to
the north and east of the wells, two new cement spillways and dams that held the
rainwater back to form a pool had been built. At the time of our visit, the pool was
practically dry, and the locals estimated that the wells had only a few more weeks
of water in them-just enough to last until the winter rains would normally begin.

Explorations on the Makran Coast

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Everywhere we have been so far on the survey we have encountered the problem of
water shortage. The winter rains have failed in recent years, and the situation is
critical.

About a hundred yards downstream from the ancient dam, where the valley
cuts through the east-west ridge along the southern edge of the head, another cement
dam had been built to capture other runoff. Just above the northernmost dam we saw
rather lush-looking agricultural plots, but we were unable to learn who owned them.

The women and girls at the wells each carried an imported Sindi pot on her
head. They made the trip to the top of the head daily for water for their families.
But the officials and wealthy people in Gwadar paid 8 annas ($0.10) for a five-
gallon can of the same sweet water to be brought down by donkeys.

From the ancient dam, we made our way up the valley to the west. After
about a quarter mile we split up. Cuyler went to the north to the top of the high
east-west ridge from which he explored that part of the head. He followed the
coast along the northern edge of the head all the way to the western tip called Ras
Kamiti (elevation seventy feet). There the head narrowed down to a thin, rapidly
crumbling point. He found no trace of the tomb marked on our maps. Possibly it had
fallen into the sea-maybe as a result of the severe earthquake that shook this
region in 1945?

Mughal took the center route, continuing westward up the valley in which
we had parted company. He also was unsuccessful in locating cemeteries or ancient
remains.

I took the southern route which proved to be the most productive. I first
crossed over the ridge that formed the southern edge of the valley we were in and
started down the gradual descent into the next valley. After about a quarter mile, I
noticed ahead of me, to the southwest, a stone wall across the east-west valley
(figure 15, #18; plate 55). It was 160 paces long, standing to a maximum height of four
to five feet, and was constructed rather carefully with a smooth downstream face.
On the upgrade side of the wall was a considerable area of silt deposit. A gap had
been made by water at the center of the wall. There was no way for me to ascertain
the age of the structure, but its poor condition su8ggested that it was not being used on a
regular basis. It was certainly a 'gabarband,"18 or wall to slow down the rain runoff
to the point where the waters deposit their rich silts on the upstream side of the
wall. Such structures were not dams in the sense of providing water storage; rather
they were used to collect soil for cultivation and were typical of arid areas from the
Indus to the Mediterranean.

About twenty paces south of that structure was a stone cairn. A hundred
yards or so farther down the sloping surface, at the end of the ridge that formed its
southern side, there was a flat area with four more circular stone cairns. Just to the
south of those circles, and also to the south of the ridge just mentioned, a thin plateau
(maximum width 200 yards) ran the entire length of the western half of the head,
just at the top of the sea cliffs. A long row of circular cairns (figure 15, #19)-about
twenty-stretches across that plateau. Also on that plateau, at a point almost south
of the gabarband just mentioned, I noted five more stone walls (figure 15, #18) that
appeared to have the same function. Again, their age was uncertain. The coastal
plateau was relatively green, and to my surprise I saw a herd of grazing cattle.

Walking westward from the first of the gabarbands, I came to an immense
plateau which dropped off sharply to the south to the coastal cliffs. Just at the

Explorations on the Makran Coast

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90

The Survey           91

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Gwadar Head: "Gabarband"

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The Survey

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Explorations on the Makran Coast

edge, where the surface dropped down to the coastal plateau, I saw remains of ten
more circle cairns. Some of them had been partially dismantled by geodesic
surveyors to provide stones for a temporary bench mark.

Continuing in a westerly direction, I reached a point even with the end of the
high ridge that formed the northern limit of the grazing lands. A small, steep
valley cut into the head at that point, to the south of which Ras Kamiti jutted out to
the west for another half mile. At the top of that steep valley stood a curious stone
structure (figure 15, #20). It measured 15 by 6 paces with the long axis running east-
west and a doorway midway along the south wall. About thirty paces east of that
structure, I saw the poorly preserved remains of what might have been circular
cairns.

On top of Ras Kamiti itself, 700 to 800 yards from the tip, I noted eleven more
cairns (figure 15, #21). Just as Cuyler reported, the tomb indicated at the west end of
the head on our nautical chart was not to be found, and possibly no longer existed.

By about 4:30, we were again back at the Rest House. We went to the
Customs House, but it was closed for the day. So, at about 5:00, Barbara, Mughal, and
I went to the Customs Mess to see Nazir Ahmad, the deputy superintendent of
Customs, Kalat Division, whom we had met in Jiwani. He offered to make the
Customs jeep available at 8:00 the next morning to take us to Gatti where Stein had
reported burials. He also promised to arrange for a boat to take us to Pasni.

In the evening, a police officer came to visit. He was one of three police
stationed in Gwadar to keep an eye on the Customs people who in turn were there to
keep an eye on smuggling. Our visitor, a Punjabi, was unusually open in his
conversation. He told us that they were on special assignment and earned 150 rupees
per month (about $31.00). From that, they had to pay for their own food, water, and
transportation. They had no vehicle so they had to hire a camel. A good riding
camel rented for 150 rupees per month, so the government in effect was saying that a
policeman on special assignment was worth one camel. He said that he hated it in
Gwadar. He complained bitterly about the lack of food (he couldn't eat fish), and he
couldn't understand the local language.
Sunday, October 30

The Customs jeep didn't arrive until 9:30. The driver was new from Karachi
and hadn't the slightest idea about off-road driving. Another man from the Customs
Office was sent with us as "guide," but he proved to be more trouble than help. He
had lived in Gwadar most of his life but didn't know the location of a village-
Gatti-only six miles away according to our maps. We discovered, after considerable
argument, false starts, and winding around aimlessly that Gatti was now merely the
name for the wooded area at the northwest end of Jebel Mehdi and that no active
village remained there. A small grass hut settlement called Dori was in the plain
just southwest of the western end of the Jebel. A fellow there told us that the people
from "Old Gatti" now lived in Dori.

Just north of the Dori huts (they were scattered over a considerable area) was
a string of low sandy foothills associated with the Jebel. A group of palm trees grew
on the northern side of the foothills near a rather large cultivated area. The one set
of "dambs" we were seeking was not far from that area, as we learned later. We
encountered the ruins of some brick buildings about three-quarters of a mile due west
of the Jebel. Those must have been all that was left of "Old Gatti" (see sketch map).

Stein's description gives the impression that he followed along the north
face of the Jebel for one mile to reach the first set of "dambs." We figured that he

94

The Survey           95

meant one mile from the now ruined buildings of "Old Gatti." We located about two
dozen circular cairns. Most of them were on top of two formidable ten-foot-high
terraces, but some of them were off the terraces. Between these cairns and the Jebel
were small cultivated areas. Numerous other small cultivated areas and scattered
trees could be seen around the western and northern sides of the cairn plateaus and
extended for over a mile to the north.

To the east of the cairns, along the northern face of the Jebel, is a fantastic
mass of severely eroded mud foothills with sheer vertical cliffs (plate 57). In order
to search that area more thoroughly, we managed first to get the jeep back to Dori.
Then we found an east-west vehicle track and turned east. After 2.7 miles, we cut to
the south off the motor path and headed for the north side of Jebel-i-Mehdi. We
were driving along the west edge of a fairly thick concentration of trees when, after
only a few hundred meters, we had to abandon the jeep. The ground was laced with
small dirt "bunds" used to direct water through the cultivated fields.

We walked straight to the base of the Jebel, directly below its highest point
(elevation 1,344 feet). The Jebel is a deeply dissected, uplifted platform, mostly of
soft Pliocene mudstones (Snead 1969:16). The first half of the walk was through the
cultivated fields. Then we got into the area of strangely eroded foothills with piles
of grey, mud-like substance topped with shattered pieces of clinkery sandstone.
Those piles got higher and steeper as we neared the base of the Jebel. We climbed to
the top of one the piles, some thirty feet high, and searched the surrounding area
with our field glasses. No trace of cairns or structures was seen. But we still wanted
to explore the area on the ground. At the base of the Jebel, we split into three groups.
Each would take a different route back to the jeep.

Cuyler went way out to the northeast and then to the west along the northern
edge of the spectacular erosions. He found nothing-certainly not the cairns reported
by Stein to be three-quarters of a mile northeast of the Jebel's high point. Barbara
and I headed due north and found nothing. Mughal went west, along the northern
face of the Jebel to the reported location of the cairns mentioned above, but found
nothing new. So, again, we were puzzled by the discrepancies among the maps,
Stein's descriptions, and what we were actually able to locate. We returned to the
Rest House for an afternoon break.

In late afternoon, Barbara and I walked to the village bazaar. She had
ordered a typical Makrani "house dress" to be made for her.19 Then we went to
another shop to buy some jewelry to go with the dress. The Makrani women wear
abundant quantities of jewelry-heavy, stone-inlaid pendants hang from the center
of their noses and elaborate solid gold discs are in each side of the nose. In addition,
they wear at least one set of gold earrings. Some of the women and girls have
multiple sets of simple gold rings piercing the entire rim of their ears. I had never
seen multiple earrings such as these. I was especially fascinated with them because
they reminded me of the terra-cotta female figurines from ancient Syria that date
back to the early part of the second millennium B.C.

Gold broaches are used to secure the neck of the Makrani dresses. Many of
the necklaces are made of alternating sets of polished stones and variously shaped
gold beads. One of the most popular types of gold beads is identical in form to the
ribbed, ball-shaped ones used by Mesopotamian Sumerians during the Ur III period
(about 2100-2000 B.C.). Gold finger rings are also worn, sometimes inlaid with stones.
The arms of women and girls are replete with bangles: many made of silver, but
others of simple, colored beads.

Explorations on the Makran Coast

On our way back to the Rest House, we stopped in at the Customs Office for a
chat. We learned to our distress that the spread of the cholera epidemic in Pakistan
had forced the stoppage of the coastal commercial shipping that had resumed just
weeks ago at the end of the monsoon season. We were told that 500 people had died
in Panjgur in inland Makran. They added that no ships departing from Karachi after
November 1 and destined for other countries would be permitted to stop along the
Makran coast. As yet, no cases of cholera had been reported in Gwadar or Jiwani, but
many families in those communities were writing letters for tickets to board the last
scheduled ship-a British-India Steamship Line steamer-that was due from Basra
on November 1.

Our newly acquired police friend came to dinner. We got into an intense
discussion centering around his perceptions, as a devout Punjabi Muslim, of 'love',
marriage customs, and the position of women. Barbara, understandably bothered by
what was to her sexist talk, had difficulty restraining her urge to throw the teapot
at him.

Monday, October 31

We were all quite tired, as well as discouraged, and opted for a leisurely
morning. At 9:00 we all went to visit Nazir Ahmad, the Customs superintendent, to
inquire about transportation to Pasni. He called in the owner of a motor launch who
told us that his engine was bad. He said he would talk with other launch owners
and try to find one for us. If no launch could be found, we would have to take a
sailboat again. We didn't want that. It was an eighty-five-mile trip, and there was
a good chance of getting becalmed now that the monsoon winds had abated.

To make use of the spare hours we had, we went to the bazaar again and
made some small purchases. Then, all of us visited what remained of the old
Portuguese fort in the center of the village. It was in the midst of the Ismaili
compound which was like a settlement within a settlement. The Ismaili community
had its own dispensary, school, and shops as well as its own walled cemetery which
we had seen on our first day in Gwadar.

When we first visited the bazaar, we had seen only the thirty-foot-high
circular tower of the fort, but there was an even higher rectangular tower. Stone
foundations of the rest of the fort were visible at many places within the compound.
It was exciting to wonder if even earlier occupations than the Portuguese were buried
there. The circular tower consisted of two storeys. The first storey had four cannon
ports and a series of very narrow gun slits. Two cannons, we were told, were still
inside the tower. We were shown one of the balls-about four inches in diameter.
The second storey was actually the walled-in roof of the tower, also with four cannon
ports and more gun slits. It provided a commanding view of East Bay harbor. The
rectangular tower, with unbroken battered walls, had been repaired during the
period of Muscat rule. They told us that an old well and a pit where prisoners had
been kept were inside. Unfortunately, the man with the keys to both towers was still
said to be in Karachi.
Tuesday, November 1

Our adventures are starting to take their toll. We are all quite exhausted.
Cuyler has a nasty infection in his eye. But at 9:00, Mughal and I trudged off toward
the eastern end of the head. Cuyler and Barbara had made plans, through the

96

The Survey

P -late     ad   dM

Plate 57  Gwadar Head: Jebel Mehdi

97

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Customs Office, to be their guests for a visit to the British-India steamer that had
stopped offshore. Unfortunately, because of some communication mix-up, they had to
take a sailboat out to the ship. Reaching it only five minutes before sailing time,
they were not allowed to board: a two-and-three-quarter-hour sailboat ride for
nothing.

Mughal and I took the eastemmost of the two footpaths leading to the head,
a steep, narrow path winding up the edge of the cliff. From the top, we got a
beautiful view of Gwadar and the crescent-shaped bays of the sandy isthmus fading
away into the dusty haze of the mainland. We split up to explore as much area as
possible. I went to the southern edge of the intermediate plateau and also walked
over the narrow coastal plateau. There were basically three levels of plateaus with
several smaller ridges and ramps. The northern plateau was the highest and
dropped off sharply into East Bay. The intermediate plateau was flat and barren,
and the coastal plateau was narrow but widened as it approached Ras Nuh.

Near the Ras, the coastal and intermediate plateaus blend into one and slope
up gently to the ridge at the very end of the head. There I visited a small Muslim
shrine (figure 15, #14) and the remains of another recent building. The shrine was
actually a miniature mosque, large enough for one person to enter, with a small
enclosure in front on the eastern side. The entire end of the Ras (elevation 280 feet)
was severely cracked and fissured as if by an earthquake. Large sections had
collapsed into the sea and many more were about to do so. The tiny mosque, and a
stone surveyor's bench mark, were on a section that was cut off from the main body of
the head by those cracks and fissures.

I located ten circular cairns (figure 15, #13) on the sloping rock plateau about
300 yards south and south-southwest of the tiny mosque. They were in poor condition
and appeared empty. No pottery sherds were found. A similar stone circle (figure 15,
#15) with a doorway in its eastern side was some fifty yards west of the tiny mosque.
It is obviously a Muslim prayer circle. Another obvious prayer circle was at the base
of the high northern plateau, just east of where Mughal and I had parted ways.
Mughal found yet another prayer enclosure-rectangular with a reed mat and an
incense burner inside-together with four more stone circles on top of the high point
halfway along the northern ridge (figure 15, #11).

In a small valley between the high northern plateau and the intermediate
one, a well-preserved stone wall runs north-south across the floor of the depression
(figure 15, #12). Some sixty yards long, it stands five feet high in the center. At its
midway point is a carefully constructed, rectangular opening from the base of the
wall up to about half its height-possibly a sluice gate? A considerable amount of
silt was deposited on the upgrade side of the wall forming a terrace as wide as the
wall and extending back up the valley about a hundred yards. The structure is an
excellent example of a gabarband whose age is undeterminable without considerable
research. Remains of a stone wall were seen in back of the gabarband along the top of
the natural ridge that formed the southern side of the small valley. It was
considerably higher than the top of the gabarband. Both this wall's function and
age are undeterminable.

From Ras Nuh, we got a fine view of Gwadar East Bay, Jebel-i-Mehdi, and
Jebel Sur farther east along the coast.

In the evening we visited Nazir Ahmad again to discuss the boat situation.
He promised to send a boatman to see us the next morning to make arrangements for
our trip to Pasni.

98

The Survey          99

Wednesday, November 2

We all enjoyed a comfortable night's sleep except for Cuyler who was having
chills, hot flashes, and upset stomach, in addition to a persistent eye problem.
Fortunately, he was feeling considerably better by midday.

We waited until 9:00, but the boatman had not arrived so Barbara, Noor, and
I went for a final visit to the bazaar. We no sooner got there than men started coming
up to Noor and asking him if we needed boats. One man offered his boat for 500
rupees. Then, the same man whom we had met in the Customs House several days
ago and who had said that his boat's engine was bad offered to take us for 350 rupees
($73.50). He explained, "Please don't believe what I said about the bad engine; I
only said that because I did not want the Customs people to know that my boat is in
shape for long trips. They always want to take our launch on long fishing trips
without paying." A deal was finalized with him, and we arranged for the bulk of
our supplies to be loaded on his boat that evening. We would leave for Pasni at the
crack of dawn.

That left us with more than half the day free to follow up a lead that
Mughal had gotten from a chap in the bazaar about some ruins on top of the highest
plateau on the head. We had not gone up there before because we had assumed it
was just barren waste cut deeply by erosion and uninhabitable.

We visited extensive remains of what was possibly a Portuguese fortification
system (figure 15, #16 and figure 16) that commanded West Bay. The stone wall had
a five-foot-wide gateway and what appeared to be gun slits placed at angles that
would have provided an efficient crossfire. A sizeable population would have been
required to construct and maintain such a defensive structure plus the large fort in the
center of town. It would be interesting to investigate more carefully the period(s) of
construction of the gabarbands and of some of the circular stone cairns. Were some of
them what are called sangars, the small fortified locations for riflemen? Some of
them were clearly Islamic prayer circles and may have belonged to a local Muslim
population working for or with the Portuguese. It seemed less likely that they were
really ancient, dating to the first millennium B.C. and related to the arrival of the
Aryans as Piggott (1950) and others have suggested.
Thursday, November 3

At 7:30 A.M. we boarded our chartered launch for the eighty-five-mile trip
to Pasni. The launch was thirty-five to forty feet long, open, and had a flat, canvas
sunshade roof over the stem. Its diesel engine would propel the boat, according to the
captain, at an average speed of seven miles per hour. The Customs people at Gwadar
had told us the trip would take five or six hours, but it actually took us eleven and a
half. Thank god we didn't have to take a sailboat. All day long there had been
hardly a breeze. We passed several fishing boats that were helplessly becalmed.

We got a fine view of the 600-foot cliffs of Jebel Mehdi and then, after just a
few miles, a view of Jebel Sur. This promontory of weak Pliocene mudstones rises to a
maximum of 516 feet, dipping 45 degrees to the south, so that the steep, wave-cut sea
cliffs rise to only 400 feet (Snead 1969:16). From Jebel Sur eastward, the coast curves
inland and then runs nearly straight for forty-one miles. The coastal plain shows
evidence of uplift on the order of ten to fifteen feet: uplift that may have occurred as
recently as the 1945 earthquake (Snead 1969:16).

At about noon we passed the mouth of the Save River Valley. We thought at
first that it might be a good place to investigate, but on closer look we decided

Explorations on the Makran Coast

against it. It was not a likely spot at all when we considered the relative
convenience of landing at Gwadar or Jiwani. The 400- to 500-foot-high cliffs between
Ras Kappar and Ras Shahid were awesome: sheer, utterly barren witness to the
dramatic uplifting of the coast that has altered the entire topography. Between Ras
Shahid and Ras Shamal Bandar, the cliffs are quite eroded resulting, as at Take-
dap and other places, in the same fantastic, eroded mud formations that we had seen
first near Jiwani. A huge section of cliff, probably half a mile long, looked as if it
had recently fallen into the sea.

Figure 16

Map and Plan: Portuguese(?) fortification on Gwadar Head

Ras Shamal Bandar, another of the coastal platforms that rises
dramatically, is 600 feet high. Looking back to the west from Ras Shamal Bandar,
we could still see Jebel Sur and Jebel-i-Mehdi, but not Gwadar Head. To the east,
Jebel Zarain was clearly visible. The shoreline east of Shamal Bandar goes for about
thirty miles in almost a straight line. It exhibits signs of ten to fifteen feet of recent
uplift, the steep cliffs petering out gradually to a low, flat coastal plateau with a
fairly wide beach strip. As we approached Pasni promontory, the low plateau
blended off into a long stretch of high, rolling sand dunes whose inexorable easterly
advance has long plagued Pasni.20

100

The Survey            101

Two rocky outcrops provide the stabilizing tip for the Pasni peninsula: both
consist of Miocene and Pleistocene mudstones, conglomerates, and shelly limestone.
The southern-most, Jebel Zarain, rising to 416 feet, has no hard stone plateau and is
eroding dramatically. Ras Jaddi, the eastern point of the peninsula, is only about a
hundred feet high.

It was sundown as we rounded Jebel Zarain. Later, a full moon offered us a
fleeting look at Ras Jaddi. All in all it was a rather enjoyable trip if you ignored the
fact that the launch was leaking at the rate of thirty gallons an hour.

We had to skirt way to the east to get around a long sand spit that ran east
from the Ras (figure 17). The only anchorage was on the east side of the peninsula
and it was shallow, like all anchorages along the coast: one and a quarter to one and
a half miles from shore and three to three and a half fathoms deep. But with our
small fishing boat we were able to move in to about a hundred yards from the beach.
It was completely dark except for the moonlight. Flashlight signals were sent back
and forth between our crew and someone on the beach (one of the Customs officers, we
found out later). After fifteen minutes of nothing more than the intermittent
flashlight signals, and having received no word that a boat was being sent out for us,
we decided to make use of our inflatable rubber raft for the first time. Mughal and I
rowed to the beach to the amusement of our launch crew. Just as we grounded, a large
wave broke over the stem and drenched us. Some Customs people came down to meet
us thinking we were a ship in distress; otherwise they would not have bothered until
morning.

After we introduced ourselves, all was well, and they gave us permission to
disembark. They claimed they had not been informed of our arrival. The
Department of Fisheries man to whom I had sent a cable from Gwadar was, at the
moment, in Karachi (like the man with the keys!) and had left no message. They
sent a small boat out to the launch for the rest of our team and all our supplies. The
main part of the government Rest House was occupied by a group of nine zoologists
from Karachi University, so they put us up in a second room with front and back
porches and a shower room. We celebrated our arrival with a canned ham and fresh
egg curry. The night was cool and fine for sleeping.
Friday, November 4

Early accounts of Pasni were not flattering (see footnote 20). Hughes
(1878:161) describes it as "an insignificant seaport . . . seated upon a few low sand-
hills . . . and having not more than 70 houses, with a population of 200 souls,
principally Kalmattis. The houses are mostly constructed of mats held together by
poles. There is a mud fort, and in Goldsmid's time (1863) two houses only in the
place. The trade of this small port is very inconsiderable, and the people are
wretchedly poor."

This is in sharp contrast to the Pasni of today. There is now an important
fish processing industry and the road north, up the Shadi Kaur Valley, provides one
of the best coastal accesses to inland Makran. On the other hand, the village-about
two and a half miles northwest of Ras Jaddi, is constantly threatened by the
advancing fifty- to sixty-foot-high sand dunes as well as by the earthquakes and
tidal waves that periodically ravage it.

We spent all morning talking with officials and local men, making
arrangements for our survey in the Pasni area and for our ongoing trip to Ormara.
First we went to visit the tahsildar in his home. He proved to be a pretty ineffectual
person: one of those "yes, yes, certainly, of course" persons who forgets everything
you said as soon as you leave. He promised to see about arranging a boat to take us to

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Ormara and to provide us with local informants. We felt even less assured of
assistance when we went to see him again in his office later in the morning.

Just like the Customs people in Gwadar, the Pasni officials didn't seem to
know much about what was going on or, perhaps, they just didn't want to cooperate.
We were told emphatically that no motor launches were available. So, we went to
the Fisheries Department offices. They occupied a new, quite elaborate building
with large rooms and a good-sized, well-lighted laboratory. The staff was
conducting statistical studies concerning the quantities of sea life available for the
fishing industry. The head man, to whom I had a letter of introduction from Central
Fisheries in Karachi, was-like many of the key persons we wanted to see-in
Karachi just then.

The man temporarily in charge, and a couple of his staff, were interested and
helpful. For our exploration just north of Pasni, we were promised the use of one of
their two jeeps (one had recently been given to them by US-ICA). The man in charge
also promised to arrange a launch to take us to Ormara. The Fisheries Department
there did not own a launch of its own but had some control over the local Fishermen's
Cooperative Society.

We returned to the tahsildar's house again. He called in a few elderly local
gentlemen. Mughal questioned them extensively. One of the men, Mir Ahmad Khan
Kalmati, was head of the Kalmati tribe (some 1,000 people) that dominated the
population of the area.21 He told us about five sites within six or seven miles to the
north of Pasni. One of them, along the Shadi Kaur Valley, was covered with pottery
that, according to his description, could be Harappan. The site even had a local
Baluchi name-Sotkha Koh-equivalent in meaning to that of Sutkagen Dor, i.e.,
"burned tepe/damb/mound." We were excited at the prospect of making at least one
major discovery of a Harappan site. Otherwise, except for our work at Sutkagen Dor,
we were feeling silently disappointed in the results of the expedition so far. Mir
Ahmad Khan also told us about the remains of a town near Pasni that had been
destroyed by the Portuguese. Arrangements were made for the jeep to take us to those
places on Sunday.

At noon, the boatmen who had brought us from Gwadar, appeared for their
baksheesh (pay). They had to beach their boat last night in order to repair the leak
in the hull. We made a deal with them (100 rupees) to take us out to Astola (also
called Haptalar) Island the next day. We were anxious to visit the place because it
features in the story of Alexander the Great's return from his India expedition.

In the afternoon we started hiking out to Ras Jaddi to see the Muslim tombs
that had been reported there by Henry Field (1959:77). But, we got only about three-
quarters of a mile south of the village when we were stopped by, of all things,
surface water. Numerous little streams and pools blocked our way: water apparently
left there from high tide. So, we backtracked halfway back to the village and took
another route.

The sand south of the village was paved with oyster shells left by birds. In
one of the tidal pools we saw a sizeable group of flamingo-like birds-white with
long red legs. Pakistan is on a major north-south migration route and offers many
opportunities to see literally thousands of birds in the sky or at pools and lakes. The
sand dunes just back of Pasni-to the west-were spectacular: a mountain of sand,
fifty- to sixty-feet high, just waiting to pour down over the village. The village
(7,500 people according to the tahsildar) was built on and among smaller dunes.
Small oases of palm trees and huts were nestled among the sand hills to the south

102

The Survey

ARABIAN SEA

Ras Jaddi

Map of Pasni

N

lOkm

103

Figure 17

Explorations on the Makran Coast

and southwest of the main center of Pasni. It made for a Hollywood desert oasis set,
at least from a distance.

We met an old gentleman who seemed anxious to tell us about his life. He
was then eighty, had remarried two years earlier, and had a new son. After
establishing those formidable credentials, he told us some interesting information
about Pasni. The village had been destroyed by earthquake and tidal waves four
times within his lifetime. He thought there was a curse on the place.

As we walked the quarter mile or so north of the village center to the Post
Office, we recognized that we were walking through the remains of the pre-1945
earthquake settlement. A lone bazaar street, occupied by only a few jerry-built,
open-fronted shops, presented us with an unfriendly atmosphere. There were no
smiling "salaams" from the shopkeepers, nor were there the crowds of smiling,
gregarious children that we had so enjoyed in the bazaar at Gwadar. We did get a
chuckle, however, at seeing a gaudily painted sign hanging above the door of a
filthy, repugnant-looking wooden building, which read:

ZAMZAM HOTEL

Propr. BAWA

We purchased a coconut and took it back to our rooms to enjoy a new flavor-
so difficult to come by out there. Mughal spent more time with the Fisheries men and
came back with the surprising news that they had offered us the use of their jeep for
the trip to Ormara. That would allow a couple of us to visit some reported ruins at
Kalmat. A launch would still be necessary to transport the rest of the team and our
supplies to Ormara. The offer clearly required serious consideration.
Saturday, November 5

Up at 5:30, we were excited about our planned trip out to Astola Island
(called Haptalar by the Baluchis, Satadip by the Hindus, and Nosala by Arrian).
Fascinating traditions and superstitions are attached to the place. It was visited by
Alexander the Great's admiral, Nearchus,22 and has a history of being a Hindu
pilgrimage place.23 In relatively recent times, the Med fishermen of Makran held
the island as an "object of superstitious dread" (Holdich 1909:206). But they may
have created their own hell, so to speak. In earlier days when they were the
dreaded pirates of the Arabian Sea, it is said that they would convey the crews of
the ships they captured to that island to murder them wholesale (Holdich
1910:161).

The geographer Holdich visited the island near the turn of the century and
was told even then that the legendary relic of the ship lost by Nearchus two
millennia ago could been seen at "sail rock" off the southern face of the island
(Holdich 1910:160). He also experienced some of the actual horrors of the place. He
describes the shore as "a weird, wild shore . . . one quite suited to the bloody
traditions which have always hung around it . . . That hedgehog of the ocean, the
prickly echinoderm, was there in great force, and he lived with a large company of
smooth, shiny, fat sea-slugs and a host of vicious-looking creatures which I believe
to be the snakes of ancient tradition" (1909:207).24

We had been attracted to the island mainly because of the tale of Nearchus's
visit. Arrian, calling the island Nosala, said it was sacred to the sun and not to be
approached by any mortal, "or if anybody be so imprudent as to venture on shore
there, he immediately disappears, and is seen no more." But Nearchus chose to defy
the superstitions and despatched one of his small galleys, manned by Egyptian

104

The Survey           105

mariners, who "having entered the island, vanished out of sight." Undaunted,
Nearchus coerced some of his mariners to accompany him in landing on the island.
He did so successfully and "found that all that story relating to the island, vain and
fictitious."

Nearchus heard then of another tradition that held that one of the Nereids
had chosen it for her home and that "she was wont to have carnal knowledge of all
the men who by any accident were forced on shore there." She would then turn the
men into fish-hence, the origin of the Ichthyophagoi, the inhabitants of the
Makran coast. A visit to the island was certainly in order.

It was 6:45 before the anchor was pulled up and the newly repaired launch
headed out to sea. The twenty-three-mile trip took three and a half hours. From
the vantage of the boat as we approached from the north, the island had the
appearance of a perfectly flat plateau, broken only at the extreme western end.

We thought first of landing at the western end and having the boat pick us
up at the eastern end. Upon closer inspection, however, we saw that the cliffs were
too sheer. The helmsman steered us to a point about halfway along the northern side
of the island and anchored some twenty-five yards offshore, just on the west side of a
sandy spur that jutted out to the north.

Our inflatable rubber raft proved its worth again. I first rowed Barbara in to
the beach avoiding the snake-filled tidal pools. Just as we landed, we were
startled by the appearance of two raggedly clad men who came from the other side of
the sandy point. We could not believe our eyes-not just at being confronted by those
two rather fierce-looking men, but because they were covered by flies, so thick that
they formed a solid mat across their shoulders and backs. The reality of their
condition descended immediately upon us. In a matter of seconds we too were covered
by a swarming mass of winged annoyance (plate 58).

After convincing ourselves that the two men were just harmless fishermen
who had stopped at the island to dry their nets, I shuttled in Cuyler and Mughal.
We were so overcome by the flies at the base of the island that we hastened to
ascend a rough trail to the top of the plateau. It was not really a trail, but rather a
tortuous dimb up a fault in the face of the cliff. The climb was encumbered by many
loose rocks-rocks which posed a considerable danger as we were soon to experience.

Once on top, the fly problem improved somewhat, but we had to keep our
faces covered and keep moving as actively as possible. We looked down onto the east
side of the sandy point and saw piles of fishing nets and the small boat belonging to
the two fishermen. We found ourselves on an absolutely flat, featureless rock
plateau-not the slightest rise or ravine in sight. Here we encountered what surely
were the shattered remains of the Hindu shrine to the goddess Khali Devi. One
small, rather substantial-looking building was partly intact, and the foundations of
at least four other structures were to the north of it. There were many pottery sherds
of fairly recent date scattered in the vicinity. The Gazetteer (p. 277) describes the
shrine as having been made of rough stones, about two yards square, containing a few
rough stone images covered with red oxide of lead. But the shrine, and a stone-built
reservoir, were desecrated by Arabs "who threw the intestines of turtles into them."
Repeated attempts to rebuild the shrine have been foiled "by unseen hands."

As we had done at Jiwani and Gwadar, we split up so as to be able to explore
the entire plateau. Cuyler went to the east along the north side of the plateau.
Mughal went to the southeast side, and Barbara and I went to the western end. The
island-at least the plateau as we saw it-was certainly not one by three miles in
area as we had read. At most it was two and a half miles long and only about half a

Explorations on the Makran Coast

mile wide. Very likely much of the sheer edges of the cliffs had fallen into the sea
as the result of earthquakes and wave action since the time when the reports that we
had read were compiled.

Southwest of the Hindu structures, we found the remains of a cemented stone
tank, about five yards square and six feet deep. We learned later, from the tahsildar
at Pasni, that it had been built by the government for the fishermen, but it did not
appear to be used by them. (Or were these the remains of the reservoir associated
with the Hindu shrine?)

The flies continued to force us all to move as quickly as possible. We had
hoped to locate one of the places sacred to the Meds-said to have the footprints of
Duldul, the horse of Ali-but the pursuit of myth had lost its luster in the clouds of
flies. By 12:15 we met again at the base of the cliff where we had beached the raft.
On the way down a rock had given way under me, hurling me face forward over the
sharp, jagged rocks. Fortunately, only my right shin got scraped, but it could have
been a serious accident.

Even the launch was teeming with flies. We beat at them with rags, cursed
them, and even built a smudge fire which endangered the entire boat but still could
not dissuade our unwelcome passengers. The three-and-a-half-hour trip back to
Pasni was misery. The flies were so dense that we could easily kill fifty or so with
one good swat. What a relief to reach shore where the red-eyed terrors flew off in
search of other prey!

We were disappointed at not finding the slightest trace of anything older
than the relatively modem Hindu shrine on the island. Since Nearchus was there
just briefly, we were, of course, not expecting to find any material remains of his visit.
But we did get a sense of what curse may have been placed on the island when he
defied the gods by stepping foot on it-FLIES!

Later in the day, we tried to finalize plans for our move eastward to Ormara.
Tentatively it was set that Cuyler, Barbara, and Noor, with all our supplies, would
go by "public" launch to Ormara: Mughal and I would go overland in the Fisheries
jeep. But, it didn't turn out that way.
Sunday, November 6

At 7:00, as scheduled, the Fisheries jeep arrived for our inspection of the
Pasni area. Barbara stayed in Pasni to play doctor to the wife of the man who was
currently head of the Fisheries Dept. There would have been no room for her in the
jeep at any rate. Somehow, the driver, Mughal, Cuyler, I, and our guide, Mir Ahmad
Khan Kalmati, squeezed into the jeep and headed off for a most profitable and
interesting ten-hour survey.

First, we drove some three miles south of Pasni to a point about half a mile
west of an area with salt pans like the ones we had seen at Jiwani. There was an old
Muslim cemetery, but nothing of compelling interest. We continued south toward
Jebel Zarain and after only a short distance, turned sharply west, winding our way
through sand dunes and dry streambeds along the coastal strip.25 We then cut north
for a short distance to the old bed of what our guide called the Cheshani Kaur. But
was it? Our 1/250,000 map had on it a Shinzani Creek much farther to the west.
Were they the same?

Whatever its name, the dry riverbed ran roughly east-west and was several
hundred yards wide. Along its northern edge was a broken line of oyster shells
suggesting that this might have marked the ocean beach in the distant past.

106

The Survey           107

I

MM

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Barbara and the flies on Astola Island off Pasni

Plate 58

Explorations on the Makran Coast

We drove west for a couple of miles along the riverbed to the abandoned village of
Cheshani Chahat. It was a good half mile from the sea, but we could clearly hear
the surf. (From the site, it was 116 degrees magnetic to the center of Jebel Zarain
which was estimated to be about three or four miles away.)

The village had been abandoned a hundred years ago and had been the
residence of the grandfather of our Kalmati guide. There was a finely preserved
sandstone well with a nine-and-a-half-foot internal diameter. The inside surface of
the well was carefully tooled to provide a smooth surface. A niche with a stone
projection beneath it had been carved on the inside of the well about six feet beneath
its top on the north. Above the niche were three rosette designs in relief. Our guide
did not know the purpose of those features in their unusual location inside the well.
The well, at the time of our visit, was dry. Nearby were a couple of palm trees, and
about forty yards to the north, on top of the oyster shell ridge, were the remains of a
mudbrick house.

We then continued west along the riverbed for another couple of miles before
we turned off the dirt track and drove over the sand dunes along the northern side of
the bed. There we descended to the southern edge of a huge, flat, hard-surfaced
plain in which we saw the remains of an abandoned, emergency airstrip. At the
point where we descended from the dunes to the airstrip, there was a functioning
well and "camping ground" called Guranij by our guide.

Driving across the airstrip, past two derelict buildings, almost to the base of
the 413-foot-high mountain face, we came to the new coastal road being constructed
by SEATO. I believe the project started under the auspices of the Baghdad Pact.
The road was planned to stretch from Basra in southern Iraq to Karachi. Mir Ahmad
Khan told us that this short stretch, just north and west of Pasni, had been cleared by
bulldozers only a couple of months earlier. The roadbed was quite soft and required
considerable work, but the road would be a boon-economically and politically-if it
were ever completed.

Another three and a half miles eastward along the road (cement markers are
placed every quarter mile), got us to the old dirt road that connects Pasni and Turbat
in central Makran. Signs at that intersection were a bit over optimistic. One said
that you could proceed east to Ormara, but in reality the road leading in that
direction degenerated into nothing but a camel trail after only a hundred yards or so.
We followed it anyway. After crossing several dry streambeds, we drove up a steep
track to the top of an eroded limestone ridge. Just as the jeep topped the ridge and
headed sharply down the other side, the driver let out a yell-"No brakes!"
Mughal and I jumped off the back of the jeep, grabbed the tailgate, and tried
unsuccessfully to retard the speed of the vehicle. The driver wisely veered off the
winding trail and ran the vehicle into a sand dune. He just happened to have a can of
brake fluid with him, and we were soon on our way again. We were beginning to
realize, however, that travelling to Ormara by jeep would not only be treacherous, it
would also take much too long.

We drove eastward for another half mile into the Shadi Kaur Valley.
There the trail just disappeared. After winding through a mosaic of sand hills, we
came to the service road connecting Pasni with a new water-pumping station. But the
station marked the end of that road too, so we drove cross-country for two or three
miles until we came to the place called Sotka Koh. Our guide had told us that a
large archaeological site was there. And, indeed there was a major site, similar in
overall appearance to Sutkagen Dor, with sharply rising, natural rock ridges forming

a large enclosure covered with distinctive Harappan sherds (figure 18; plate 59). At
last we had made a significant discovery relating to the Harappans. 26

108

The Survey           109

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Explorations on the Makran Coast

We were delighted. The enclosed area was close to the size and shape of
that of Sutkagen Dor, but the entire site was in deplorable condition. We did not
have the time or resources to conduct test excavations, or to do more than pace-off
what appeared to be the peripheral walls. But our impression of the surface remains
was that virtually all the subsequent occupation layers had been eroded away over
the millennia. It was interesting, just as it had been at Sutkagen Dor, that even at
the top of the highest natural ridge-here along the southern side of the enclosure-
we found Harappan sherds (plate 60). The only logical explanation was that the
Harappans had constructed massive mudbrick or pise platforms on the ridges and
that they had disintegrated, leaving the sherds on the surface of the rocks. We
collected sherds from the surface to take back to Karachi. Our initial impression of
the sherds suggested a much higher percentage of elaborately painted pottery than
we had found at Sutkagen Dor. Curiously, no artifacts other than pottery were noted
or collected on the surface of the site.

The site was about nine miles inland from Pasni and was not easily
recognizable even from the Pasni-Turbat Road which passed within viewing
distance of it on the west. Henry Field, during his 1955 survey in the region, had not
noticed it. It was well named-"Burnt Hill." In addition to the reddish color
produced by the disintegration of millions of pottery sherds, thick deposits of grey,
ashy soil covered most of the surface, especially along the eastern edge. There was
no visible evidence of a massive stone citadel wall such as is seen at Sutkagen Dor.
The topography suggested that massive walls had been constructed, but possibly
they were made of mudbrick or pise rather than stones.

The relative locations of the two sites were virtually identical-both being
in major valleys that provided access from the seacoast to the inland Kej Valley.
Neither was presently near enough to the sea to be called a seaport, but both had
commanding positions for controlling any movements of peoples or goods along the
valley routes. There may be geological and other natural factors that have isolated
the sites farther from the seacoast than they were in antiquity. Coastal uplift has
been a major factor in modifying the coastal topography; earthquakes and tidal
waves within recorded history have produced radical changes in the coastline. The
relentless erosion of the coastline's sandstone by waves and wind also reshapes it;
and the natural silting up of the river mouths extends the coastal strips.27

Following our all too short visit to Sotka Koh, we drove north for a short
distance and then turned west to cross the Shadi Kaur riverbed just south of where it
makes an S-bend to cut around the western end of a break in the Talor Range. Another
couple hundred yards took us to the Pasni-Turbat Road. Driving south on that road to
a wide, sandy plain a couple of miles north of Pasni, we visited an old Kalmati
cemetery (plate 61). Mir Ahmad Khan told us that it was more than 200 years old.
It was most interesting; the gravestones were rectangular, elaborately carved, and
supported six inches or so above the ground on four stone legs. The name of the
deceased was inscribed on the top surface of the large stone. The style was
apparently distinctive to the Kalmati tribe.

A short drive southwest across the plain brought us to the western bank of
the mouth of the Shadi Kaur. There, on a rather high embankment, we saw a few
stone building foundations and a scatter of relatively modern pottery sherds. The
site was small in area, but local lore had it that this was the site of the town visited
by the Arab geographer and traveller Ibn Batutu in the fourteenth century. It was
now called Siah Koh ("Black Hill"), another common name given to archaeological

110

The Survey      111

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Explorations on the Makran Coast

sites in Baluchistan whose surfaces are darker than the surrounding ground because of
the pottery sherds covering them.

By then it was 5:00 and past the scheduled time for the departure of our boat
for Ormara. We hastened back to Pasni. Although we were tired from the ten hours
of jeep travel, we immediately prepared to board the boat. We ate a hasty dinner
and boarded at 6:00, after paying the captain the modest sum of 250 rupees for our
passages. There was no cabin, so we situated ourselves as comfortably as possible in a
small, square area on the open deck. The boat was going to Ormara on some unstated
business. A dozen fishermen were also aboard. During the return trip to Pasni, those
men said they were going to engage in some commercial fishing.

It was dark by the time the boat cleared the entrance of Pasni Bay. We slept
intermittently during the moonlit, night-long voyage.
Monday, November 7

The boat approached the western end of Ormara Head at sunrise (figure 19).
It is identical in composition to Gwadar Head (Pleistocene conglomerates and shelly
limestones and mudstones and sandstones from the Miocene and Pleistocene). Both
are about eight miles in east-west length, but Ormara Head is much more massive
and higher (up to 1,554 feet). The tombolo connecting the rocky head with the
mainland is also larger than that at Gwadar with a minimum width of one and a
half miles.

It took an hour to reach the eastern end of the head (eight miles) where we
made a wide sweep to the north as we entered East Bay. An impressively wide,
shallow, sandy area lies along the northern edge of the head making it necessary for
boats to skirt far out to the north. They then double back in to anchor before Ormara
town which is situated on the sandy tombolo.

We had difficulty arranging for a decent-sized boat and enough men to get
our supplies ashore. The surf was fairly heavy at the time. Finally, the Customs
people dispatched a boat to assist us. At first glance, Ormara looked like a small
village, but it turned out to be a sizeable town with various activities related to
commercial fishing. It has never attained the importance of Gwadar because it has
no easy access to the inland, being isolated by vast areas of sand dunes and swamps.

It took about an hour and a half after we reached shore to make the initial
introductions and get settled into the government Rest House which was a
comfortable building with two bedrooms, a large dining-living room, a "kitchen" (a
small, square chamber with a few loose stones on the floor), a room for Noor, a
storage room, a washroom, and a toilet room. There was also an L-shaped veranda.
The house was situated at the southern end of town between the schoolhouse and the
dispensary, on high ground that attracted a steady sea breeze.

The rest of the morning we spent meeting government officials and arranging
for some basic furniture to be moved into the Rest House. The tahsildar was in
Karachi (news we had gotten used to hearing), but his secretary was most
cooperative and made us feel welcome. After a short rest in the early afternoon, we
returned to the tahsildar's office where the secretary had invited some of the town's
elders to meet us. There were five elders, each plainly dressed and outwardly
indistinguishable from all the other men we had seen in the streets. They were
clearly uninterested in us and in our archaeological explorations, and after less than
an hour, we departed, no better informed than when we had started.

112

The Survey

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Plate 60     Sotka Koh: Natural ridge along southern edge of site; covered with

Harappan sherds

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Explorations on the Makran Coast

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Explorations on the Makran Coast

Later in the afternoon, another older man came to the Rest House to talk
with us. A tall, alert man born in Ormara, he was a retired police officer who had
spent his life in this part of Makran. He gave us firsthand information about Ras
Malan, the last scheduled destination for our survey. He had personally been there
and had seen ancient remains on Batt Plateau. He said that we could easily go by
boat from Ormara to Batt Kaur, along the southern edge of Ras Malan, where we
could land and climb up the valley to see the ruins.

Encouraged by this information, we sent a message to the tahsildar's
secretary stating that we wanted to hire a motorized boat for three days. Ras Malan
was only twenty-three miles from Ormara, but if we had to take a sailboat we could
very well waste the three days available to us floundering in a windless sea.

For a good part of the afternoon, we had another diversion. A group of some
twenty little girls came to the Rest House out of curiosity, to stare and giggle at us
strange people. They were dressed in colorful garments-reds, greens, and blues-and
all were wearing silver bracelets (bangles) and anklets. Many were also wearing
nose and ear rings. The girls, with their beautiful smiles, were exceptionally
attractive and were anything but shy. Also, a group of women came over to visit
with Barbara. They freely offered to sell her the silver bangles right off their arms.
The solid silver bracelets were elegantly smoothed from long wear. Barbara
purchased about a dozen of them (thirty years later they are still among her most
favorite and beautiful jewelry).

After supper, we had an unexpected visit by a young man and his cousin. The
young man, Omar, was visiting his home in Ormara during a break in classes at
Karachi University. He was studying economics to prepare himself to carry on the
fishing business started in Ormara by his grandfather. Like so many male university
students we met in Pakistan, he expressed his hope to do advanced studies in either
the U.S. or Japan. He had grandiose plans for Ormara, including a big hotel and the
development of a sort of Hawaiian paradise as he told us. It would be a place where
people from Karachi could drive for the weekend. That part of his dream depended
on the completion of the planned road from Karachi to Ormara. But, even if it were
completed, it would have to be a jeep trip and a difficult one at that. The geography
between Karachi and Ormara ranks as the most difficult in all of Pakistan.
Nonetheless, it was refreshing to listen to his enthusiastic and optimistic plans for
the future of that remote and underdeveloped coastal community.

He told us that he planned to return to Karachi aboard the next motor launch
which was due to arrive in Ormara the day after tomorrow. It was scheduled to
return to Karachi on Saturday, but he said it might be possible to persuade the
captain to delay his trip until Monday so that we would be able to go with it.
Otherwise, we would probably have to cable for a special boat from Karachi and
that would cost a pretty penny.
Tuesday, November 8

We were up by 6:30 to begin our trek to the top of Ormara Head. Little did
we realize what was in store for us. We took our local houseboy along as guide.
Without him, we probably would not even have been able to locate the start of the
path. The northern, landward side of the head was considerably higher and steeper
than the ocean side. The tremendous amount of collapsed rock at the foot of the
northern side may have resulted partly from the 1945 earthquake that so severely
rocked Makran.

116

The Survey           117

The rudimentary path started near the place where the eastern edge of the
sandpit connecting the head and the mainland swings into the base of the head. We
wound our way, with quick certainty, up a relatively gentle slope with loose rocks for
fifty yards or so. Then we came to the steep, jagged collapsed rock into which the
path led up to the face of the head. The farther we went, the steeper and more
difficult it became. About two-thirds of the way along the path, we were confronted
with a rickety, wooden ladder that had to be ascended for some dozen steps to get to
the next climbable level.

A bit farther on, we reached a spot where we had to crawl up between
tumbled rocks for some fifteen feet and then worm our way up and around a very
narrow tip of rock to a small ledge. There, the lower end of a chain was anchored.
Our guide told us that this path, and the chain, were used by people who collected
grass from the top of the head to feed their animals. The chain, he said, was used to
lower bundles of grass over the edge, but we could not imagine how anyone could carry
any sort of a bundle and still negotiate shimmying through and around the collapsed
rocks.

From that point the ascent took on the aspect of mountain climbing, an
experience for which none of us was trained. There was no path anymore. Finally,
we reached a ledge some twenty feet below the lip-edge of the top of the head. We
faced a sheer vertical face of rock and a rusty chain that was suspended from the top
of the head (plate 62). Taking turns, we climbed up the chain and finally were
standing together on the top of the 1,500-foot-high promontory.

The view was surprising (plate 63). The top of the head was a perfectly flat,
barren rock table slanting down at an angle from 3 to 5 degrees from the 1,550-foot-
high point in the northwest to a low point of 600 to 700 feet at the southeast end. A
flat, narrow coastal plateau runs along the southern edge of the head at a level
lower than the edge of the main sloping plateau. That narrow, lower ledge widened
out as it approached the eastern end of the head until it virtually formed the entire
eastern top of the head.

We walked about three-quarters of the way to the eastern end, but there was
absolutely nothing of human origin to be seen. The flat slope of the surface allowed
us a clear view of the entire eastern end. Through our binoculars we were not able to
locate any structures.

About a hundred meters east of where the chain was located, near the
northern edge of the promontory, we found two curious rectangular structures made of
stone. They were both about three meters square. Number 1 was in very poor
condition but originally may have been similar in construction to Number 2. The
latter had walls of rough stones, with no mortar, standing about one meter high. An
entryway was built into the eastern wall. In the lower parts of the southern and
western walls were rather carefully built, rectangular openings (ca. 40 cms. high and
20 cms. wide). Their function was unknown to us, but their size would have allowed
the passage of goats or some other small animals. The structures appeared to be
relatively modern. We were told later, by a local man in town, that they were more
than 200 years old, belonging to the time of the local Jan (?) Dynasty and were
fortifications against the periodic raids by the Arabs. But it was not at all clear how
they might have functioned, or even if his story was true.

We regrouped back at the chain for a date-break before heading toward the
western end of the head. After walking about a mile up the sloping surface to the
1,550-foot-high point, we found it necessary to stay closer and closer to the northern
edge of the head because of the deep, rugged gullies that cut into the southern half of

Explorations on the Makran Coast

the slope. We could still see clearly most of the lower, flat coastal plateau to the
south and saw no advantage in actually climbing down to it. Mughal, using the
binoculars, located three circular stone cairns on that plateau.

We continued until we came to a very deep ravine that cut clear through to
the northern edge of the head. It was by then 11 o'clock and we still had at least an
hour and a half of tough walking and climbing to reach the valley of the Moghul
Kaur. There, we had heard, were some "pillars," a well, and what sounded like
gabarbands. We discussed the situation and agreed that we could not realistically
complete the walk that day. Perhaps upon our return to Ormara from Ras Malan, we
might be able to take a boat around to the mouth of the Moghul Kaur and explore the
valley more effectively. Stein had visited the valley in 1943 and had reported
finding nothing of great antiquity. Nonetheless, we were still curious.

Several people in Ormara had told us about wild animals that lived up on
the head-especially deer. Others told us that there were only some wild goats and
birds and that was all. We saw nothing at all moving.

The view from the top of the head was interesting. We could see clearly the
concentric arcs of the old beaches that progressively created the tombolo connecting
the head to the mainland. The town of Ormara occupied the southern half of the
isthmus, whereas the northern half was dominated by sand dunes. In the distance we
could see the large, flat, barren sandy beach of the mainland. To the left (west) of
where the isthmus joined the mainland, we could see Peri Kalat where Stein
reported visiting a Zikri cemetery (confirmed to us by local informants). Far to the
east, we could see our next destination, Ras Malan.

The descent and return to the Rest House took only an hour and a half-much
quicker than the ascent, but it was physically more punishing on our legs and feet.
Later in the afternoon, still tired from our climb, we met with some more local men
and asked them for information about the geography and history of the region. The
most interesting and helpful was the sirdar of the Ormara khaudas (i.e. headman
over all the heads of the various local tribes; an intermediary between the
government and the local factions). He provided information about Ormara and its
history, and also promised to help us with our transportation problems.

In the evening, Omar, the young man we had met a few days earlier who was
training for a career in the fishing industry, came for a visit. With him were his
cousin, Sherali Dhandani, and a man from the Customs House. They chose to discuss
American politics, but we finally steered them into a discussion about our own
problem of getting back to Karachi.

Communication of any kind between Ormara and Karachi was primitive. For
example, mail from Karachi goes by truck some 115 miles to Las Bela where it is
transferred to camel for the rest of the trip. The route goes back down to the coast
along the western side of Sonmiani Bay to Hingal, about 90 miles, and then westward
along the northern edge of the stony hell called Ras Malan for another 70 miles or so
to Ormara. This takes a minimum of two to three weeks in each direction. It would
have been fascinating to follow that route back to Karachi if we had had the time
and resources. The possibilities for finding ancient sites were good, but that would
have to wait for some future expedition.
Wednesday, November 9

We spent most of the morning gathering and trying to confirm information
about our return trip to Karachi. The rumor for the past two days had been that the

motorized "country craft" (such as we first took from Karachi to Gwadar) was on its

118

The Survey           119

way from Karachi. We were able to confirm the rumour through the telegraph man,
although the agent for the boat and the Customs people had not yet received official
notification. Later in the day the official cable was received, and we reconfirmed
our reservations. The boat was to arrive the next day and would return to Karachi
probably on Monday or Tuesday. Omar said that he knew this particular boat-the
fastest of the country craft-and that it should make the trip to Karachi in sixteen or
seventeen hours. So, we sent a cable to the Department of Archaeology giving our
departure date for Karachi.

We also learned that the deputy inspector of foods for Kalat District was
arriving the next day and that he and his party would require room in the Rest
House. They had reservations on the same boat to Karachi.

Our "work" for the day consisted of examining the stone wall foundations of
some sort of structure said to belong to an older settlement. It was situated among the
houses near the northern edge of the present town. There was no way of identifying
what the structure might have been, but there was also no reason to assume any great
antiquity for it. Later, we worked on the sketch map of Sotka Koh and got a good
start on drawing the pottery sherds that we had collected there.

During the morning Barbara had visited the girl's primary school for
entertainment. She described the experience as follows:

I was invited to attend a class in the local school: a class for girls only.
The teacher was proud that they were able to offer an education to girls as well
as boys in this remote community. The room was full of girls of all sizes and ages
who were as excited about my being there as I was to be there. I did not see rows
of seats or stacks of books or blackboards such as we have; only the bright, brown
eyes of girls in white chadars (large scarfs that cover the head and shoulders),
plain white shirts, and shalwars (long, baggy pants) of light blue, all seated on
floor mats in front of their teacher.

It was a remarkable show of attempting to follow a school uniform code
even by those very poor families. There was an obvious awareness of the
importance of education for their children, but the sad note was that this would
probably be the only education the girls would receive. They would be taken as
far as the sixth grade by which time they would be able at least to write their
names and to do the basic arithmetic required to run the daily business of a
family. The time to take on family responsibilities came at a very early age-
probably fourteen to sixteen years of age. The few older girls in the class were
probably there only because the opportunity to marry had not come to them as
yet.

By way of thanking the class for having me as their guest, I made a doll
from a sock and dressed it in western style clothes so that the girls could see
what our children wore to school. A short note of thanks was sent in return along
with the request that I make enough dolls for all the girls in the class. Alas, I
had no more extra socks, and the local bazaar carried no such items."

In the evening we all visited the home of Omar's cousin Sherali for a dish of
jello and some sweets. The young man was an Ismaili and lived in the tallest
building in town-three stories. His room was plastered with pictures of both Agha
Khans. Barbara had been invited there earlier in the day to prepare a special
surprise for us. After the jello and Pakistani sweets, Barbara and Sherali presented
us with dishes of ice cream made from powdered junket and fresh milk and frozen in
his refrigerator. What a ludicrous, but welcome dish to have in Makran. Also, we
heard on his short-wave radio that we had a new president in the States-John F.
Kennedy.

Explorations on the Makran Coast

Ormara Head: Climbing chain to the top

120

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The Survey            121

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Explorations on the Makran Coast

Thursday, November 10

About 8:00 in the moming, we shoved off for our sail to Ras Malan. Our boat
was a twenty-five-foot, lateen-rigged fishing craft, very similar to the one we had
taken from Jiwani to Gwadar, but much narrower and much more crowded. In
addition to our team (less Noor), there was the crew consisting of the captain, two
men, and a small boy, plus an elderly gentleman who lived at Ras Malan and who
was to be our guide. We were very excited about this trip because the old man said
that he knew just where the old ruins that we had described to him were. The
Baluchistan Gazetteer described a place with stone foundations and a cemetery with
headstones carved with animals, human hands, etc.

Normally, they told us, the forty-mile trip should take about eight hours.
Unfortunately, there was not a trace of a breeze. The crew rowed for the first four
hours which got us out past the eastem end of Ormara Head where the crew hoped to
pick up a breeze. Well, we did-a light one-but it was directly out of the east.
Lateen-rigged boats are not famous for their tacking performance. The laborious task
went on until 4:30. By checking the coastline with our maps, we figured that we were
still twenty-four miles from Ras Malan.

The coastline from Ormara to Ras Malan runs almost straight east-west for
the entire forty miles. The first thirteen-mile stretch is a wide, nearly flat, sandy
plain called the Gwaz region. Some four miles inland is a group of mud volcanoes
looking like huge cones of whitish mud (Snead 1969: figure 1). The next twenty-six
miles to Ras Malan has been described as "one of the most rugged sections of the
entire Makran coast" (Snead 1969:26).

At 4:30, when the wind failed completely, the sail was hauled, and the
three crew members resorted to the oars again. As we finally approached the
western end of Ras Malan, we were confronted with a most formidable and forbidding
sight: a huge, uplifted block of Pliocene and Pleistocene sandstones, mudstones, and
shelly limestones, with sheer cliffs rising up to 2,000 feet above the water. The
starkness of the scene was soon ameliorated as the sun set-one of the most beautiful
of the entire trip-with the naked rocks flashing white and pink in the reddish
glow of the setting sun, accompanied by a striking cloud pattern overhead.

But we were still two miles from the planned landing spot. From what we
could see of the coastline, and the sound of the pounding surf, we concluded that it
would be foolhardy to attempt a landing after dark. So, the anchor was thrown out,
the kerosene lanterns were lit, and we rearranged ourselves in the cramped quarters.
The crew and the elderly gentleman took the forward half of the boat; Cuyler and
Mughal settled on top of the bedding rolls in the open "hold" amidships; and after
dinner, Barbara and I squeezed into the small, triangular deck space where the
helmsman usually sat.

The crew had not brought enough food with them. They started the trip
with only a small bundle of rice and two fish, all of which they had consumed at
midday. We offered them a pound of rice but they refused it with no explanation.
We set up our charcoal stove on the helmsman's deck and proceeded to prepare water
for a cup of pre-dinner bouillon. Just as the water was coming to a boil, the stove
tipped over for some unknown reason spilling hot water and charcoal onto the wooden
deck. Cuyler quickly doused the charcoal with sea water and we tried again. We got
our bouillon and then boiled a pound of rice and added pieces of chicken that Noor
had prepared for us in Ormara. The meal was topped off with our usual couple of
cups of tea laced with Ovaltine. At 10:00 we settled down to what we hoped would
be a reasonable rest.

122

The Survey            123

Friday, November 11

At 2 A.M. the crew started stomping over and around us, slapping us
accidentally in the faces with ropes, and generally being hard to get along with.
But, we learned, they were doing the smart thing. They wanted to get the boat into
position for landing as soon as the sun came up. There was still no steady breeze so
the rest of the night was spent in repeatedly putting up and taking down the sail,
and rowing.

When dawn broke, we found ourselves 200 yards or so from the beach at a
point considerably east of the mouth of the Batt Kaur. The captain explained that
Batt Kaur had no suitable landing beach and we would have to go farther to the
wide beach connected with the Sorab Kaur. Two small fishing boats were visible on
the beach, and all of a sudden some men appeared from the hills to the west. The
surf was tremendous from our perspective-huge rollers crashing onto the beach.

The captain then informed us that he and his crew had never landed there
before. Fortunately, our elderly guide knew the beach and pointed out to the captain
a single point along the lengthy beach where the surf was usually the weakest. We
stored our gear beneath the deck panels as well as we could and prepared for the
landing. At a point just beyond where the waves crested, the crew quickly turned the
boat around so that the bow headed into the oncoming surf. Otherwise there would
have been danger of being swamped by a wave breaking over the stern. A couple of
large waves picked up the boat and hurled us toward the beach. The crew strained,
successfully, to keep the boat from turning sideways to the waves. More waves broke
around the boat, but, miraculously, we stayed dry and in a moment were aground. We
immediately jumped out and helped the crew manhandle the boat about ten yards up
onto the beach above the high water mark.

We found ourselves on a fairly flat, sandy area at the base of a tremendous
sandy-clay cliff. It was obvious that we had a difficult day ahead of us. Barbara
elected to remain on the beach with the boat and our supplies. She had a couple of
peculiar experiences in our absence. First, a fellow came walking along the beach
from the direction of Ormara. He stopped to talk with the fishermen who sent him
over to Barbara to get an aspirin for his headache. He said that he was on his
way-walking-to Karachi. The next incident involved our precious water supply.
We had brought two five-gallon cans of boiled drinking water from Ormara and had
left them on the beach with Barbara and the rest of our supplies. Late in the
afternoon, unseen by Barbara, our crewmen emptied both water cans onto the sand.
Barbara was furious when she learned of this. With her knowledge of basic Urdu
plus a great deal of gesticulating, she understood them to explain that they had
emptied the tins because they had gotten too hot sitting in the sun all day. They
then carried the cans up the Sorab Kaur Valley, a mile or so, and filled them with
water from a well dug into the riverbed.

Cuyler, Rafique, and I, with our elderly guide, headed out at 8:00. At the
mouth of the Sorab Kaur we visited a small settlement of three mat huts inhabited
by a few women and children. Continuing westward, we ascended a steep, stony ridge
and gazed westward down into the large Batt Kaur Valley. Then for hours we
climbed up and down steep-sided gullies and followed dry river courses.

We came upon a cemetery in which many of the graves were clearly of recent
Muslim date (figure 20; plates 64, 65, and 66). But there were also seven intact stone
tombs called "Rumi" tombs by the locals. They consisted of a rectangular stone
platform of two or three superimposed stages, each stage diminishing in size, on top
of which was a sarcophagus-like structure of vertical stone slabs (figure 21). The

Explorations on the Makran Coast

corners of the slabs had been secured to one another by metal clamps originally. Only
the butterfly notches remained. The metal that had been poured in for the clamps
had been robbed out. The sarcophagi originally had stone slab lids, also of two or
three stages. Apparently on top of the lids had stood a rectangular stone, its
opposite sides carved with simple geometric designs. The sides and ends of the
sarcophagi were decorated with large rosette-like, incised carvings of several
simple geometric patterns (figure 22).

Plan: "Rumi" tombs on Ras Malan

124

Figure 20

The Survey           125

Figure 21    Construction details of a "Rumi" tomb

Mughal told us that the body was actually buried in the ground and the
sarcophagus-looking structures were merely filled with dirt. It certainly seemed so
to us as we inspected the now dismantled structures. The dirt fillings had apparently
washed out, and the chambers were empty. Mughal, familiar with this general type
of tomb found throughout Sind, said that he had never seen any quite like these. We
made a sketch plan of the cemetery, took measurements of the best preserved
monuments, and photographed the area.

We then continued walking north along the easternmost of the two branches
of the riverbed that formed the central clump of ground upon which the tombs were
built. After travelling a considerable distance up a steep-walled valley, we began
the actual ascent to the top of the Batt Plateau at its northern end. It was a difficult
route, winding steeply upward for more than 1,000 feet. After about an hour of this
we dropped, exhausted, on the top of the Batt.

From there we looked straight down to the north into a fantastic gorge that
must have been 1,500 feet deep. Straight across the Batt, to the north, west and east,
we were confronted with a panorama of a maze of immensely deep, twisting valleys
that cut the tilting tablelands into a gigantic jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces.
Repeatedly, we had asked the old gentleman where the ancient ruins were that he
had spoken of back in Ormara. He would only spread his arms and tell us that "here
is the top of Batt Plateau-just what you asked to see."

We were furious. The old fellow did not seem to have the slightest idea of
where the promised site was-or was he just so old and tired that he didn't want to

Ras Malan: "Rumi" Tombs

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Explorations on the Makran Coast

take us to it? At any rate, I doubt that given the terrain we would have had time to
get to it and back to the boat by dark.

Ras Malan: "Rumi" Tombs

Common Incised Designs

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Note: Scale Is Approximate
Shaded Areas Are Incised

16-Point Star

15-Point Star

Common carved designs on "Rumi" tombs

126

Figure 22

The Survey           127

Plate 64

"Rumi" tombs,
general view

Plate 65

"Rumi" tombs-
Rafique Mughal
making notes

Plate 66

Top view of one of
the "Rumi" tombs

Explorations on the Makran Coast

In order to get to a point one mile away, we would have had to walk perhaps
five miles to skirt the deep ravines. It was at least ten miles as the bird flies to the
northwestern corner of the promontory where we calculated the old telegraph line
dropped off the sheer eastern cliff on its way to the Hingal Valley, and eventually
to Karachi. (How did they do it-stretch that telegraph line for hundreds of miles
over such terrain?)

Still interested in seeing the old telegraph line, we asked the old man if he
knew if it was near. Yes, he said, he remembered where part of it still remained.
After twenty minutes of walking, and some rethinking on his part, he said that he
now remembered that it was a very long time ago when he had seen one remaining
pole somewhere down on the beach east of the Ras. So much for the telegraph line.

We could easily have spent a week exploring that rocky maze, but our
schedule would not allow it. Also, we were discouraged by the lack of reliable
information and the surfeit of misinformation that we had received.

After walking another half mile or so to the east to get to higher ground, we
could not see anything that we had not already seen. We found a lone, tortured tree,
built a fire in its sparse shade, heated our canned Beenie-Weenies, and rested our
aching bodies for forty-five minutes. We also finished off our drinking water supply
(six quarts), anticipating that we could get good water from a riverbed pool on the
way back to the boat.

Instead of retracing the route we had taken to reach the top of the plateau,
we went farther east, clear to the head of the Sorab Kaur. We walked up and down
rocky ridges for quite some distance along the southern edge of the valley in search of
a place where we could descend. Finally we found a likely place next to a good-sized
waterfall-then dry. The valley floor was more than a thousand feet below us, but it
did not appear to be a dangerous descent so over the edge we went.

At the bottom was a small stream that appeared to come from a spring. In
spite of the thick coating of algae on the surface, the water itself was crystal clear,
cool, and delicious-the best water I remember having in Pakistan. We gorged
ourselves on that liquid delight, took a brief rest, and headed down the valley
(Sorab) toward the sea. It proved to be a four-and-a-half-mile walk, mostly along
the dry riverbed. Not far below the place where we had gotten our water, we came
to another waterfall, some twenty to twenty-five feet high, with a little water
flowing over it into a small pool. Two little boys and a little girl were playing in the
pool. Where had they come from? They walked with us all the way to the three-
hut village at the mouth of the valley.

Exhausted, we started the final four-mile trek. The scenery was spectacular
along the way: barren, sheer, sandy cliffs eroded into fantastic forms. We saw
several small water holes that had been dug into the riverbed. The ground water
level was clearly quite near to the surface even that late in the season. About one
mile before we reached the valley mouth, we saw a camel standing in the riverbed
drinking water out of a bowl! As we got closer we saw the head of a small boy
popping in and out of a hole in the ground. He was standing in a water hole, lifting
water from it with a pan and filling the camel's bowl. What lengths one has to go to
to survive in such a place.

At 4:30 we reached our campsite on the beach. Barbara had a gourmet meal
prepared for us: rice and chicken, beef steak patties, and bread. But it was getting
late, and we wanted to be on our way back to Ormara before dark. We devoured the
food hastily and decided to hold off on the tea until we were underway in the boat.

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The Survey           129

Getting out to sea proved to be another adventure. The surf was high with
five- to six-foot breakers. We all helped push the boat down to the water's edge.
Then Barbara, Cuyler, and I jumped into the boat, put the reed mats over the bed
rolls, stuck the cameras and knapsacks under the aft deck boards, and prepared for a
wild ride.

The crew had a difficult time getting the boat through the surf and keeping
it from turning sideways. One wave broke directly on the boat and soaked us
thoroughly. When we finally got out past the breakers, the boat was put into running
order: the sail hauled up, lines arranged in their proper positions, but, alas, no wind.

The sun was setting as we rowed off to Ormara. The crew rowed diligently
for two hours, and we were making quite good time, but they could not keep it up much
longer. Our minds were distracted from the wind and rowing problems by watching
the amazing display of phosphorescent algae on the water surface. At the slightest
touch of the water's surface with your hand, a bright light exploded. It looked like
an infinite number of brightly shining fireflies were in the water. The display set up
by the oars was even more spectacular.

That beautiful phenomenon was unexpectedly helpful in navigation because
the location of the breaking surf was well marked by these strange lights. Hence the
helmsman was kept aware of how close we were to shore. But, it did not take long for
the novelty to wear off. We could not relax because we had to stay cramped up in the
central "hold" atop the wet bedrolls. All night the crew was busy alternating
rowing, raising and lowering the sail, and rowing again.
Saturday, November 12

Thankfully, a light breeze kicked up in the middle of the night and the
return to Ormara took only twelve hours instead of the twenty-four it had taken to
get to Ras Malan.

We were damp, cold, cramped, tired, and I am not sure what else as we
jumped off the boat into the surf at Ormara beach. Two nights with little sleep,
separated by a full day of the most strenuous trekking we had done during the entire
trip, left us exhausted. Fortunately, the food inspector who had moved into the Rest
House the day we left for Ras Malan had moved out to take other quarters.

A most delightful surprise awaited us for lunch. Our Fisheries friend, Omar,
brought over a dozen fresh oranges that his cousin had gotten off the launch from
Karachi-the first fresh fruit in over six weeks. (The launch had arrived on
Thursday, and we were scheduled to return to Karachi on it.)

The tahsildar had returned from an inspection trip of his district (which
runs from Kalmat in the west to the Hingal in the east). He had just completed a
forty-mile camel ride in eight hours. Civil servants at these remote posts did not
have the best of all possible lives. He was an unusually friendly fellow, seemed
efficient, and was surprisingly interested in and well-informed about the geography
and things to be seen in his district. If only he had been in Ormara when we first
arrived: we would certainly have obtained more reliable information about the
region.

He informed us that the proposed coastal road project had flopped as far as
this section of it was concerned. The stretch between Ormara and Hingal to the east,
especially the Buzi Pass part, was just too tough for road building. Contrary to what
the postman had told us, the tahsildar said that the mail from Karachi goes to
Liari, on the western side of Sonmiani Bay, and then along the coast to Agora near

Explorations on the Makran Coast

the Hingal Valley by truck. There it was transferred to camels for the six- or seven-
day trek to Ormara. At Buzi Pass, the path is so narrow that the mailbags and other
cargo have to be lifted up and down the steep cliffs by chains.

As for the stone circles we had seen on top of Batt Plateau, he said they
were-and are still-made by the Zikris28 who make up two-thirds of Ormara's
population. A circle five to ten feet in diameter was constructed from a single course
of stones and in the center was placed one or two stones. Then, they would sit around
such a circle and say prayers, make recitations, etc., possibly with a special person
standing in the center. The same circles were used for weddings. The bride and groom
would stand in the center and were given a shower bath.
Sunday, November 13

We were up at 7:00 after a refreshing sleep. I spent most of the day taking
color photographs of the sherds and objects we had collected during the survey.
Cuyler and Mughal worked on the drawings of the Sotka Koh pottery. At 4:00 we
went again to the house of Sherali, the cousin of our Fisheries friend. His uncle from
Karachi-a prominent figure in the fishing industry-was also present. They put out
a wonderful spread for us: Pakistani sweets from Karachi, nuts, Pakola (soda pop),
cakes, jello, dried fruits, fresh oranges, and tea.

Next we visited the bazaar to see the shipping agent about the launch. We
were ready to go, but he refused to send the boat back to Karachi until Tuesday.
Quite obviously he was stalling in hopes of getting more cargo to take. There we
were, top-paying passengers (14.5 rupees each-$3.05), stranded until he could get
another bundle of mats.

On our way back to the Rest House, we stopped by the tahsildar's office and
noticed an unusual amount of activity and excitement. A cable had arrived
announcing that the deputy inspector of police of Karachi District was arriving the
next day by small plane. Las Bela District had recently come under the
administration of Karachi, and he was coming to set up a new police post. We were
informed that we would have to vacate our rooms the next morning.

Still there were pleasures to be had. For supper we had local lobster: seven
good-sized ones for seven rupees-about $0.21 each. The tails were meaty, but they
had no pincers.

Monday, November 14

The day was full of anticipation and anxieties. Although we had been
informed yesterday that we would have to vacate our rooms for the visiting police
official, we had not been given any information as to where we could stay until the
boat departed for Karachi. We were all anxious to return to Karachi, being tired and
admittedly disappointed about the failure to discover more evidence for ancient
coastal sites. But, on the other hand, we were nearing the end of an unusual period of
excitement, anticipation, and freedom that transcended all the bureaucratic hassles
and episodes of frustration and exhaustion.

We kept ourselves busy-each to his own-drawing sherds, finishing odds
and ends of paperwork, and rearranging already rearranged packing. We were
informed that the launch would definitely depart the next afternoon. We saw that
all day workers were busy loading bundles of reed mats and containers of dried fish
into the boat.

I calculated the mileage covered during our month and a half of survey-
including the return to Karachi:

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The Survey            131

Country Craft         460 miles
Motor Launches          160

Sailboats           90

Camels           100

Jeep           65
On Foot           100

Total Distance         975 miles

This calculation does not include the numerous local treks to cemeteries and
the daily area surveys at Sutkagen Dor.

The deputy commissioner of police did not show up, so we were permitted to
remain in the comfort of our rooms. The tahsildar was as disappointed as we were
relieved. He had worked feverishly to spruce things up for him. He had had the
schoolchildren give the school and surrounding grounds a good cleaning up. A special
meal had been prepared for the commissioner and local dignitaries, but no
commissioner. Rumor had it that, in fact, he would be coming for a day's hunting trip
instead of for official business.
Tuesday, November 15

First thing in the morning, we finished packing. At 9:00, Omar came by and
invited me to visit the largest of the fish preparation plants where fish were salted
and dried for export-mainly to Sri Lanka (Ceylon as it was called then). It did not
take long for me to get my fill of the gory and malodorous fish preparation industry.
I was relieved to get out of the place and to return to the fresh air at the Rest House.

At 1:00 we shifted all our baggage to the beach and made final preparations
to board the launch for Karachi. As we had experienced at the other "ports" along
the coast, the water was so shallow that the launch had to anchor quite a distance
offshore. We hired the same sailboat that had taken us to Ras Malan to transfer us
out to the launch. There was a favorable breeze, but it took forty-five minutes to
reach the launch and another half hour to hoist all our gear aboard. The captain
greeted us, told us that we would weigh anchor at 4 P.M. and that the trip to
Karachi should take about sixteen hours.

The launch, named Alladini ("God Given"), was a bit larger than the
Mujahid that had brought us out from Karachi. It had a sleeker hull and a reliable,
three-year-old diesel engine. But there seemed to be no cargo hold to speak of. All
the reed mats, dried fish, and 250 live lobsters going to Karachi were piled on the
open deck. The passengers situated themselves atop the bundles of mats. We took
over the choicest spot-right on top of the roof of the captain's cabin and
wheelhouse. We had plenty of room to spread out and prepared for a comfortable
journey back to Karachi.

Wednesday, November 16

The starry night sky was beautiful and the temperature ideal, just cool
enough for one blanket. We had the best sleep in weeks-on top of the deck house
and all.

Explorations on the Makran Coast

At 10:00 the ship rounded Monora Point and entered Karachi harbor. By
11:00 we were on the dock starting through an amazingly short and simple Customs
check. Noor, having arranged for three taxis, saw us safely and comfortably back to
the Central Hotel.

Our first independent archaeological venture was over. Barbara went
immediately to PAN-AM to arrange for a flight to get her home to our two daughters
by Thanksgiving. Cuyler had to return to Iran within a few days. I was confronted by
a myriad of tasks to perform before I could leave for Iraq where I would go directly to
the excavations at the Sumerian holy city of Nippur. I was to represent the Royal
Ontario Museum of Toronto as photographer for the University of Chicago's
expedition.

The first obligation was to the Pakistan Department of Archaeology. I
submitted a preliminary report on the expedition to the director general. He seemed
quite pleased with the work and invited me to apply for another expedition permit
when mny new job situation in Toronto was more settled.

Our expedition permit allowed for a division of the finds. All of the pottery
had been taken from the boat directly to our room in the Central Hotel. Mughal came
to the hotel two days after our return to divide the pottery. We spread out each
excavated "lot" of sherds and split it into two groups: one for the department and one
for the University Museum. Unique sherds all went to the department but otherwise,
the sherd groups provided each institution an almost equally representative
collection.

Then followed two weeks of hectic activity until I was finally able to leave
Pakistan for Iraq. Hours of work were required to complete the bookkeeping after the
division of the sherds. Also, because it was not certain when, if ever, I would again
see the Department of Archaeology's share of the sherds, I checked each one again
for the accuracy of the drawings and descriptions.

The cholera epidemic that had been ravaging Pakistan since before our
arrival, continued unabated, causing a temporary ban on travel from Pakistan to the
Near East. That gave me the opportunity to travel to the north, to Lahore, to see the
Department of Archaeology's archaeological collections stored in the Mughal period
Old Fort. I was allowed to spend several days inspecting and taking notes on all the
pottery collections that had been made in Baluchistan by Walter Fairservis,
Beatrice de Cardi, and the Department of Archaeology. This study provided me
with a basic knowledge of the tremendous diversity of the ceramic history of
Pakistan that would have taken years to obtain otherwise.

Back in Karachi I received a telegram that forced a further delay in my
departure date, but it turned out to be a delightful one. My professor at the
University of Pennsylvania who had turned my career to the Indus civilization-the
noted Sumerologist, Samuel Noah Kramer-and his wife Millie were to arrive in
Karachi on November 29. For years he had written extensively about the
identification of the Sumerian paradise land, Dilmun,with the Indus Valley. It was
the result of my classes with him, and his urging that there should be an
archaeological expedition to search for evidence to confirm that identification, that
I had planned the Makran survey. And now, the professor himself was coming to
visit his Dilmun.

Their visit was quite a social and cultural event in Karachi. He and his
writings about Dilmun were well known among Pakistani intellectuals and the
foreign community as well. The American embassy and the Department of

Archaeology arranged a busy schedule of visits to archaeological sites, talks, and

132

The Survey           133

social events. Some of these involved me because of the Makran explorations.
Arrangements were made for Kramer and me to be interviewed on Voice of America.
Several Pakistani newspapers called us for interviews. It was all an intoxicating
experience for me-a brand new Ph.D. about to start on his first professional job. And
to go with Kramer to visit the Director of Archaeology helped set the tone for my
future involvement in Pakistani archaeology. Dr. F. A. Khan was charmed by
Kramer and his "paradise" theory. He reacted by suggesting that the good relations
that we had established through the Makran survey should continue on a long-term
basis. He invited me to return to conduct a large-scale excavation over a period of
years. At the time I had no idea that, after three years with the Royal Ontario
Museum in Toronto, I would return to the University Museum in Philadelphia and
begin a research program that would involve me with the Indus civilization for the
following twenty-five years.

Paradise we did not find. Dilmun has now been identified almost certainly
with Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. But Makran opened our eyes to the fascinating
world of the ancient Indus civilization and its manifold mysteries. Paradise was
lost, but there are riches and memories that surpass anything that might have been
found there.