1953: McFadden's death (2 of 2)

Handwritten: Thanks Note add'l copies? PCMS

Handwritten: Sent to Mr. Woodbridge

Handwritten: Curium FILE

BALKH 23 October

Dear Fro:

Two letters of last month from you, brought by hand from Kabul by a travelling member of Dept. of Agriculture on his way to Herat. I don't know what has been happening in the world for the last month; and the letters I got this week were all more than a month old, so my condition was very little bettered. As a matter of fact the letters were brought to Kunduz by Casal, and sat there awhile until agricultural gent turned up with them a note from Cyrus; he says they have found nothing of interest (it is three weeks since I left Kunduz) and have various minor troubles - including vandalism at night, illicit digging, scattering of sherd piles, and breaking up of column bases. All this in spite of two night watchmen! By which I take it that they haven't found any sculptures etc.; but they had no column bases when I left, and column bases suggest architecture to me, which is important (or can be). Anyway Cyrus always sees things through the darkest of green glasses, so I take his note with a grain of salt.

Here I am making a sondage near (in fact at) the west end of the south city wall - the part that is highest and reputed to be the oldest. The wall itself is 6 m. high, but it stands on an embankment very nearly 20 m. high, which has never been investigated. According to Schlumberger's plan this south wall belongs to Balkh I (whatever that may have been) which had not a wall but an embankment around it. The walls of Balkh II and Balkh III were presumably built on top of the embankment. This also the place suggested by Don Wilber and Sir Wheeler for sondage. Begin to think Schlumberger's hypothesis correct in general. The upper wall is certainly Islamic; it is 7 m. high altogether (we had to go only one meter to find its roots) and under it there is an earlier wall, of which we have exposed the inner face to a depth of ten meters. When we get into the undisturbed fill against its face we run out of Islamic sherds so it is earlier than seventh century; I would not venture to date it, not knowing the local pottery, but guess it may be Kushan. I think we are nearing its bottom, and there are still seven or eight meters to go before we reach ground-level, so there must be something earlier still under that; and if the second wall is Kushan, the earlier one (whether wall or embankment - I am betting on wall) can hardly be anything else but Greek or rather hellenistic. If we have time we can go through the bottom of the pile and see what is there - at least it will not have been disturbed, with some 20 m. of earth and walls on top of it! It is rather dull digging, and naturally not productive of finds; but it should at least tell us in the end whether Balkh is Bactra or not; and if it is, then consideration can be given as to where else in the vast area might be possible or profitable to dig. I hope by somebody else. So you see it is useful information I am digging for rather than finds; and where to dig for finds I haven't the slightest idea - probably on the Bala Hissar, if you resign yourself to going through meters and meters of Islamic fill before coming to anything interesting. Schlumberger made more than forty of his little holes there, and it was the only place he found Hellenistic sherds or coins; but as I said before I don't see how he could see much in his little holes (in your letter I misread "test holes" as "post holes"; they were hardly more, 1½ meters square!) Suspect that Foucher's big trench would have been more to the point, if he hadn't picked the place where the Islamic was guaranteed thickest - he never got below 15th century, and his hole must have been 8 or 9 meters deep.

It is a little more civilized here in a way than at Kunduz; the workmen are better, and don't insist on being paid every day after work - I pay on Thursday afternoons, which eliminates five of those brawls a week, and also … continues