Russian and Kyrgyz scientists are exploring the ruins of the medieval trading center of Turu-Aygyr, submerged in the waters of Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan for centuries. Their findings were first reported by the Russian Geographical Society (RGS) last November, when it launched a joint archeological mission with the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) and the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic to study the drowned city.
An important stop on the ancient Silk Road between China and the West, which flourished between the 1st century BCE and the 14th to 15th centuries CE, Turu-Aygyr was destroyed by an earthquake at the beginning of the 15th century and subsequently disappeared under the lake’s surface. According to researcher Valery Kolchenko, head of the Kyrgyz contingent, while the city may have already been abandoned by then, the region’s population changed drastically following the earthquake, with medieval settlers being replaced by nomads.
From the 10th to the 13th centuries, the Issyk-Kul Lake area was under the control of the Karakhanids, a Turkic dynasty, said Maksim Menshikov, a researcher at RAS and head of the mission. “People here practiced various religions: pagan Tengrianism, Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity,” he said in a statement. “Islam was primarily the religion of the nobility and the population involved in active economic activity.”
The team is working on four main sites between three and 13 feet deep near the northwest shore of the lake. Their discoveries have included, in one area, the remains of buildings made of baked bricks and a millstone, as well as a decorated architectural element indicating that the complex also contained a gathering place like a mosque, a bathhouse, or a madrasa, a school for the study of Islam. In addition, the scientists found the ruins of stone-and-wood structures; they hope that through analyzing samples of the wood, they can determine an exact date for the earthquake that destroyed Turu-Aygyr.
At a second site, the researchers have discovered a Muslim necropolis in which the dead have all been buried lying on their right sides with their faces and bodies oriented toward Mecca, in accordance with Islamic tradition. Islam only became widespread in Central Asia in the 13th century, and the burial ground is likely of that period. The remains of two people have been disinterred and will be studied for clues as to how the population of Turu-Aygyr lived at the time.
In parallel with the team’s fieldwork, archaeologists are studying contemporaneous Chinese descriptions of the the region, Menshikov added. While they did not control it, the Chinese considered it a zone of interest, and this is reflected in Chinese chronicles, especially those written during the Tang dynasty (618–907 AD). “This gives us hope,” Menshikov said, “to correlate historical materials with the results of our archaeological excavations.”
At a third area in the lake, researchers found medieval ceramics, and, at a fourth site, the remains of rounded and rectangular structures, which the team hopes to explore in future excavation seasons.
