SEVENTEEN CENTURIES AGO.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8855, 4 July 1907, Page 4

SEVENTEEN CENTURIES AGO.

Dr M. A. Stein, the leader of the Indian Gavernment Mission to Eastern Turkestan, has made a further series of important archaological discoveries in Chinese Tut bests n. On the site of an ancient village m the desert of Niva, Dr Stein, according to the Pioneer, obtained a rich yield of antiquities illustrating every day life seventeen centuries ago, and showing the predominant influence of Greco-Buddhist art. Many valuable records were discovered written on wooden tables In the Khavosthi script peculiar to the extreme NorthWest of India, At an ancient site north of Lobnor, Dr Stein found, quantities of written records on wood paper mostly in Chinese, but many also in Kharosthi. The constructive features of houses and shrines and of carvings and objects of industrial art show a striking agreement with those of Niva. At Miran nearly a thousand Tibetan records wero found. Many highly interesting art remains were found in a ruined Buddhist; shrine, including colossal stucco re lievea closely related to the Greco Buddhist sculpture of the first cen turies of the Christian era. The excavations at Miran promise results of the utmost importance.