Two Ancient Monuments in Southern KurdistanAuthor(s): C. J. EdmondsSource: The Geographical Journal, Vol. 65, No. 1 (Jan., 1925), pp. 63-64Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with theInstitute of British Geographers)Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1782349Accessed: 23/06/2009 15:30

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THE MOUNT EVEREST FILM OF 1924 THE MOUNT EVEREST FILM OF 1924

variety of incident, with exciting side-shows. The record of 1924 is deliberately more restrained, more artistic, and worthy of its title, The Epic of Mount Everest. We heartily commend these moving pictures to the notice of all our Fellows, and urge them not to miss the opportunity of seeing a film quite unlike the last.

As a prologue to the representation Captain Noel has brought from Tibet seven Lamas from a monastery near Gyantse, and one of the Sherpa porters, all in the care of Mr. John Macdonald, son of the British trade- agent at Chumbi. We see and hear the celebrated Io-foot trumpets in a little scene of Lama life that is designed to create the right atmosphere. The incidental music introduces some of the charming Tibetan airs that Mr. Somervell collected in I922. We regret only the unavoidable absence of a lecture such as accompanied the first film, for which the sub-titles, with a touch of the professional jargon, are a poor substitute.

TWO ANCIENT MONUMENTS IN SOUTHERN KURDISTAN

C. J. Edmonds

T HE Qara Dagh is a double range of cretaceous limestone, rising to a height of over 5000 feet. Between the two jagged ridges is a

tract of elevated oak forest, about three-quarters of a mile wide, called Naokopi. Although between it and the line of the great Kifri-Kirkuk- Altun Kopri road, which divides Arab from Kurd, there is a belt some 45 miles across of exclusively Kurdish territory, it is at the Qara Dagh that the real Kurdistan seems to begin. For this belt consists, for the most part, of the most forbidding scenery imaginable-broken " bad lands " of clay, gypsum, and sandstone, crumbling and dusty in summer, slippery and treacherous in their narrow paths after rain. To the north of the range lies another world, park-like, oak-grown country, with blackberry hedges and orchards, running brooks, and tobacco gardens. Near its south-eastern end the Qara Dagh range contains two striking monuments of antiquity.

The first is out in the open at the southern foot of the Paikuli Pass, on the main migration road of the nomad Jaf, and is called by the Kurds Butkhana, the idol house. Its existence is well known, the ruin having been discovered by Rawlinson in 1844, and more recently examined by the German archaeologist, Dr. Ernest Herzfeld, in I9II, I913, and, under British auspices, in I923. The original building, which stands on a natural hillock, has collapsed, and all that remains is a core of stone and mortar, about I2 feet high on the north, the highest side. But over the hillside are scattered numerous blocks of dressed stone, a few with mouldings, many with fragments of a third-century bi-lingual inscription in Sassanian and Chaldaeo-Pehlevi (W. Geiger and E. Kuhn, 'Grundriss

variety of incident, with exciting side-shows. The record of 1924 is deliberately more restrained, more artistic, and worthy of its title, The Epic of Mount Everest. We heartily commend these moving pictures to the notice of all our Fellows, and urge them not to miss the opportunity of seeing a film quite unlike the last.

As a prologue to the representation Captain Noel has brought from Tibet seven Lamas from a monastery near Gyantse, and one of the Sherpa porters, all in the care of Mr. John Macdonald, son of the British trade- agent at Chumbi. We see and hear the celebrated Io-foot trumpets in a little scene of Lama life that is designed to create the right atmosphere. The incidental music introduces some of the charming Tibetan airs that Mr. Somervell collected in I922. We regret only the unavoidable absence of a lecture such as accompanied the first film, for which the sub-titles, with a touch of the professional jargon, are a poor substitute.

TWO ANCIENT MONUMENTS IN SOUTHERN KURDISTAN

C. J. Edmonds

T HE Qara Dagh is a double range of cretaceous limestone, rising to a height of over 5000 feet. Between the two jagged ridges is a

tract of elevated oak forest, about three-quarters of a mile wide, called Naokopi. Although between it and the line of the great Kifri-Kirkuk- Altun Kopri road, which divides Arab from Kurd, there is a belt some 45 miles across of exclusively Kurdish territory, it is at the Qara Dagh that the real Kurdistan seems to begin. For this belt consists, for the most part, of the most forbidding scenery imaginable-broken " bad lands " of clay, gypsum, and sandstone, crumbling and dusty in summer, slippery and treacherous in their narrow paths after rain. To the north of the range lies another world, park-like, oak-grown country, with blackberry hedges and orchards, running brooks, and tobacco gardens. Near its south-eastern end the Qara Dagh range contains two striking monuments of antiquity.

The first is out in the open at the southern foot of the Paikuli Pass, on the main migration road of the nomad Jaf, and is called by the Kurds Butkhana, the idol house. Its existence is well known, the ruin having been discovered by Rawlinson in 1844, and more recently examined by the German archaeologist, Dr. Ernest Herzfeld, in I9II, I913, and, under British auspices, in I923. The original building, which stands on a natural hillock, has collapsed, and all that remains is a core of stone and mortar, about I2 feet high on the north, the highest side. But over the hillside are scattered numerous blocks of dressed stone, a few with mouldings, many with fragments of a third-century bi-lingual inscription in Sassanian and Chaldaeo-Pehlevi (W. Geiger and E. Kuhn, 'Grundriss

63 63

THE MOUNT EVEREST FILM OF I924

der Iranischen Philologie '). Among the debris lie four large stone head-and-shoulder figures of varying sizes, two of them measuring 3 feet from the crown of the hat to the tip of the beard. The head-gear bears a remarkable resemblance, in shape and proportionate size, to the tall felt kulah worn in Luristan to-day.

The second monument is a rock relief on the cliff-side in the Darband- i-Gawr, the Pagan's Pass, one of the gorges of the northern ridge. (The word " Gawr " is the Kurdish and Luri form of the word " Gabr " applied by the Persians to-day to Zoroastrians: Kurds and Lurs describe any- thing pre-Muhammadan as Gawr.) It is more easily approached from the northern side, but is also accessible from Naokopi: both routes involve a stiff scramble. The figure represents a bearded warrior looking to his left, and is about Io feet high. The helmet or cap is round and fits closely to the head. The beard is curled close to the chin, and then falls in wavy lines almost to the level of the left hand. The tunic is cut low round the neck. The pectoral muscles and those of the shoulders and upper arms give an impression of great vigour and strength. The girdle at the waist is of four parallel strands and suspends a kilt. The right hand grasps a sword or mace-handle, the left a bow. On each wrist is a bangle or perhaps the representation of a ruff at the end of the sleeve. The right leg is rigid, the left raised at the knee. The rock below the hem of the kilt has been worn away by the action of water, but below each foot is a sprawling figure, arms and legs outstretched and a pigtail hanging from the head. Once seen it is impossible to forget the tre- mendous vitality the sculptor has imparted to his work.

I am indebted to Mr. Sidney Smith of the British Museum for per- mission to reproduce the following note:

" My vague recollections of having seen a publication of your picture from the Kara Dagh must, I think, have depended on a memory of the Naram-Sin stele published in 'Delegation en Perse,' I, plate x. The attitude of Naram-Sin, who holds a bow and a mace (?), advancing up a hill, so strikingly resembles the attitude of your figure that it cannot be accidental. Also the figures being trodden underfoot in your picture, though not identical, are so similar to Naram-Sin's enemies that my memory played me a trick. Despite search, I cannot find anything published as to your relief. There is one very interesting divergence between the relief at Kara Dagh and the stele : in the latter (also pictured in King, 'Sumer and Accad') the king wears a pointed helmet, with horns that mark him as a divinity, 'the divine Naram-Sin,' as he is called on some inscriptions. On your relief he wears a plain rolled cap like Gudea."

64

ROCK RELIEF, DARBAND-I-GAWR, QARA DAGH

ROCK RELIEF, DARBAND-I-GAWR

THE PAGAN'S PASS FROM NEAR SEOSENAN