Viewing page 56 of 182

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

12.

lative positions must have been determined largely by the carrying medium in the process of settling down as deposits. By and large, the bones have a relatively lesser specific weight than potshards and stones, they naturally settled down more slowly. Such distribution is by no means limited to the pits S2 and S2Bn; it is true wherever the cultural soil is undisturbed. But the most definite proof for the occurrence of a flood is found in the discovery of a drowned child in an undisturbed grey stratum(Fig.  ). The child was in a crouching position with the mouth opening at its widest angle, which was filled with alluvial deposites. He was evidently drowned just at the time crying for help. But before the crying was effective, the flood water must have rushed in. However it is improbable that the mouth was so fully open in the very beginning. It was evidently widened after the drowning by continued refilling.

The occurrence of flood must have been very frequent in this region. The latest one took place within the memory of the living inhabitants(1881). The frequency of the occurrence in the past could not be determined by mere underground observation. Still some points in other respect are definite. It is definite for instance that the flood responsible for the destruction of the city must have been a mighty one, with sufficient force to carry big boulders and destroy human life all of a sudden. It is perhaps for this reason that even the documents concerning the all important records of divination were helplessly left to destruction. In our recent discovery, we have found evidence to the effect that the inscribed plastrons were carefully numbered and ^[probably] bound in volume. If this were done, it must have been stored in repository for future references, and the theory that they were cast away as soon as used could not be maintained.

It is a different matter however to determine where the re-