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[[underline]] Chapter I. [[/underline]]   12.

ruinous condition and housed but a single monk. It stood fronting south in a broad cultivated plain on a fairly high rectangular foundation faced on all four sides with gray brick. To the north, at some distance to the rear of the temple, was a low treeless ridge dotted with grave-mounds, some of them said to date from the Eastern Chou Dynasty (770-255 B.C.). The region is one of the most important, from both the historical and the archaeological points of view, of any in China.
   Our examination of the site disclosed, lying in the temple courts ([[underline]]cf. [[/underline]] pl. [[strikethrough]] VIII) [[/strikethrough]] ^[[4, fig 2)]] or built into its walls, numerous remains of antiquity, while others lay partially embedded in the soil of the surrounding area. Among these were gray bricks, whole or broken, of Eastern Han type; interesting examples of what appeared to be Northern Wei sculpture; decorative carvings---lintels or cornices---probably of the T'ang period; two inscribed stelae of the Mongol or Yüan Dynasty, still upright but with only their upper extremities projecting above the soil; and quantities of fragments of pottery and porcelain of different epochs. The level of the entire plain had obviously been raised several feet by earth washed down from the low ridge to the northward, and much material of both historical and archaeological interest must thus have been covered. While we had neither time nor opportunity for exploratory digging, the surface indications alone made it sufficiently clear that the area was a ^[[veritable]] graveyard of antiquity, well worthy of excavation.
   We were also able to throw light on another point of interest. The account already mentioned (page 8) states that the first two Buddhist missionaries brought with them a white horse (or horses) laden with sutras. They were assigned quarters by the emperor, we are told,
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