Lost Silk Road city unearthed in the high mountains of Uzbekistan

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of two medieval cities in the steppe mountains of eastern Uzbekistan. This discovery could change our understanding of the legendary Silk Road.

This trade route, known for the exchange of goods and ideas between East and West, was long believed to connect lowland cities.

However, archaeologists have used remote sensing techniques to discover at least two highland cities located along important trade route intersections.

One of the cities, Tugumburak, is a metropolis measuring at least 120 hectares, but it is located more than 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) above sea level, an altitude that is still considered inhospitable.

“This discovery is changing the history of Central Asia,” said archaeologist Farkhod Maksudov, a member of the research team.

The researchers believe that Tugubulak and its small town, Tashuburak, were a bustling settlement during the Middle Ages, between the 8th and 11th centuries, when the region was ruled by a powerful Turkic dynasty.

Currently, only 3% of the world’s population lives above this altitude. Lhasa in Tibet and Cusco in Peru are rare examples.

The discovery, led by Maksudov, director of the National Archaeological Center of Uzbekistan, and archaeologist Michael Frachetti of Washington University in St. Louis, was made using a drone and a remote sensing tool known as lidar, which uses reflected light to create three conditions: It’s now possible. Dimensional mapping of the environment.

Their study was published this week in the scientific journal Nature, and experts not involved in the study praised its importance in shedding light on the lifestyles of nomadic communities.

The team first discovered the smaller city of Tashbulak in 2011 while trekking in the mountains. They found burial sites, thousands of pottery shards and other signs of human habitation in the area.

He said historical records suggest the existence of cities in the region, but the researchers did not expect to find a 12-hectare medieval city at about 2,200 meters above sea level. .

“We were shocked in a way,” Frachetti told the BBC.

He added that even getting up there was difficult as they encountered strong winds, storms and logistical difficulties.

Four years later, local forest managers informed the team to investigate another site near Tashbulak.

“The official said, ‘I think I have some of that kind of china in my backyard.'”

“So we went to his house… and discovered that his house was built on top of a medieval citadel. It was like he lived in a huge city.” Frachetti said.

The most difficult part of these discoveries was convincing the academic community that these cities existed.

“When we tell people we’ve found this amazing ruin, we’re met with some skepticism, wondering if it’s not that big or if it’s just a mound or a castle… “The big challenge was how to document this city scientifically, to really explain what it is,” Frachetti said.

In 2022, the team returned with a drone equipped with lidar sensors that helped peel back the surface to reveal Tugumbrak’s walls, watchtowers, intricate architecture, and other fortifications.

The researchers suggest that communities did not choose to settle in Tugubulak and Tashbulak to harness strong winds to provide the fire needed to smelt the region’s abundant iron ore. It suggests that. A production kiln was also discovered during preliminary excavations.

“Anyone who had iron in their hands in the Middle Ages was very powerful,” Makdoff said.

But it could also have led to the collapse of the community, he says. The area was once covered by a dense juniper forest, which may have been cleared to facilitate iron production. “The environment in this area has become very unstable due to flash flooding and avalanches,” he said.

Typically, scientists expect to find evidence of settlements in the lower valleys, “so this discovery is remarkable,” said Peter Frankopan, a world history professor at the University of Oxford.

“What an amazing treasure trove…it shows the deep interconnections criss-crossing Asia and the linkages of natural resource exploitation going back more than 1,000 years,” he said.

Brown University archaeologist Zachary Sylvia said high-altitude urban sites are “extremely rare” in the archaeological record because communities face unique challenges in settling them. He said that.

The team’s work makes a “major contribution to the study of medieval urbanism in Central Asia,” he said in a commentary in Nature.