Elizaveta Romashkina
Researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences, with part of an ancient jar
On an expedition in early autumn, a team of Kyrgyz archaeologists explored a long-lost Silk Road city at the bottom of Lake Issyk-Kul. They discovered an authentic treasure trove of artifacts, a medieval cemetery, and signs of a natural disaster.
A team of archaeologists from the Kyrgyz Republic recently carried out an underwater archaeological expedition to Lake Issyk-Kul to study the remains of a city that once stood along the iconic Rota da Seda.
The lake, located in northeastern Kyrgyzstan, is the largest in the country and the second largest high mountain lake in the world — and, beneath its surface, hides a watery grave several centuries old.
On their expedition, the team found the remains of a medieval cemetery, ceramic artifacts and several buildings, which confirm the presence of an ancient urban settlement with marks of what archaeologists classified as “a Pompeii-style tragedy“.
The location was “a city or a large commercial cluster on one of the important sections of the Silk Road”, he explains. Valery Kolchenkoresearcher at the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic, who participated in the expedition, part of the Russian Geographical Society.
“At the beginning of the 15th century, following a terrible earthquakethe city was submerged by the waters of the lake”, says Kolchenko, who compares the event to the tragedy that destroyed Pompeii — although the Kyrgyz city was apparently already abandoned when the earthquake occurred.
Still, the The region’s population has changed drastically after the event, with nomads replacing the prosperous medieval nucleus, says the researcher.
Archaeologists studiedfour distinct zones of the lake. At the first point, they discovered brick buildings with a millstone, one of a pair that, together, ground cereal into flour or semolina.
They also found evidence of a decorated social building, which could be a a mosque, a bathhouse or a madrasa — an Islamic educational institution.
In a second area of the lake, the team identified a Muslim necropolis from the 13th–14th centuries. The skeletons found in this ancestral cemetery were facing north, towards Mecca, the holiest place in Islam, currently in Saudi Arabia.
In a third location, the team identified other three graves probably older, medieval pottery and a large container. As the vase is deeply buried under the bottom of the lake, archaeologists were unable to remove it, and they intend to try again in the next archaeological campaign.
“In the 10th century, the Kara-Khanid State”explains Maxim Menshikovresearcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences and one of the team members. It was this dynasty that ruled the Silk Road zone around lake Issyk-Kul.
“It was a Turkic dynasty. The populations that lived here practiced several religions: Tengrist paganism, BuddhismNestorian Christianity. The ruling elite frequently resorted to Islam throughout their rule, but this religion only spread widely in Central Asia in the 13th century”, details Menshikov.
“Until then, Islam was above all the religion of the nobility and the layers of the population involved in the most dynamic economic activity, adds the researcher.
The Muslim necropolis now discovered must be associated with this period. How the region is mentioned in medieval Chinese sourcesresearchers now hope to be able to cross-reference the findings with historical materials.
