Tashbulak - A Lost City along the Silk Road
The mountain town of “Tashbulak” is located in a high elevation pasture zone of eastern Uzbekistan, at roughly 2100 meters above sea level (approx. 7500 feet). Site wide geophysical survey (sponsored by the National Geographic Socieity) revlealed the dense architectural structure of the town center, which spans roughly 7ha at its core. Urban features such as a central mound (citadel), a large industrial workshop area, and a cemetery with over 350 individual burials all frame Tashbulak within a broader syntax of medieval urbanism and early Islamic conversion in the region. Tashbulak is currently one of the only known high mountain town centers constructed and occupied during the time of the Qarakhanid Empire, outside the lowland agricultural zones. The intellectural opportunity offered by this newly discovered urban center, high in the mountains of Ustrushana (Uzbekistan),is to examine early Qarakhanid art and architectural innovation, economic production, and social structure at the intersection of highland nomadic and lowland agricultural realms. This project is a collaboration between Dr. Farhad Maksudov of the Institute of Archaeology of Uzbekistan, and Michael Frachetti of Washington University, St. Louis.
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