Funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) – project number 389351859
http://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/389351859
Start of work: March 2018
PIs: Prof. Dr Heinrich Härke (Universität Tübingen, Germany)
Dr Azilkhan Tazhekeev (Korkyt-Ata State University of Kyzylorda, Kazakhstan)
Project description (2017, revised March 2019):
This cooperative project explores the process of early medieval urbanization on the northern Silk Road in the context of nomad state formation and long-distance trade. The key site is the deserted town of Dzhankent which is recorded in Arab sources of the 10th to 12th centuries as the ‘capital’ of the Oguz nomad empire. Key questions include the date of the foundation of the town and its predecessor settlement; its lay-out and functional elements; the composition, structure and changing economic activities of its population; and the reasons for its demise. These questions are tackled with an interdisciplinary geoarchaeological approach by non-destructive prospection, excavation and enviromental studies in the interior of the town and in its immediate surroundings, and by analysis of finds and findings. The project is intended to give an impetus to the study of early medieval urbanization in western Kazakhstan by introducing new methodologies, and by putting the subject for the first time in the context of theories and debates from Central Asia to Western Europe.
The significance of the site derives from its historical context as well as its natural environment: the formation of the Oguz nomad state in the 9th/10th centuries and its contemporaneous urbanization, with its main towns located in the huge river delta of the Syr-Darya. One of the main stimuli for urban development here may have been the location at the intersection of the Northern Silk Road (running east-west in the Syr-Darya corridor) and the north-south trade with slaves, furs and livestock to Central Asia. The role of Khorezmian middlemen in this trade appears to be reflected in the pottery, domestic architecture and urban planning of Dzhankent. Its location gives the project an added environmental relevance in that it contributes to the wider study of the desertification of the Aral Sea region. Environmental elements of our research programme will include the dating of river delta palaeochannels close to Dzhankent, and scientific analyses of soils, animal bones and fish remains from the site.
The project addresses, thus, socio-economic as well as environmental factors in the analysis of the urbanization process east of the Aral Sea. The results are to be interpreted within the wider framework of Central Asian and European debates about urban origins and functions in early medieval state formation; these have so far been virtually unconnected debates.
Site Director of Excavations:
Dr Irina A. Arzhantseva (Moscow)
Science collaborators of the project:
Prof. Igor Modin (Moscow – geophysical prospection)
Prof. Andrej Panin (Moscow – geomorphology)
Dr Maria A. Bronnikova (Moscow – soil science)
Dr Ashleigh Haruda (Halle, Germany – animal bones)
Dr Alicia Miller (Jena – stable isotopes)
International Advisory Committee:
Prof. Jörn Staecker† (Tübingen)
Prof. Grenville Astill (Reading, UK)
Prof. Jonathan Shepard (Oxford, UK)
Dr Luke Treadwell (Oxford, UK)
Dr Oleksii Komar (Kiev)
Dr Veronika Murasheva (Moscow)
Prof. Zholdasbeg Kurmankulov (Almaty, Kazakhstan).
Co-opted 2018:
Dr Yurij Karev (Paris)
Dr Agusti Alemany (Barcelona)
Dr Natalia Khamaiko (Kiev)
Ph.D. students working on Dzhankent topics:
Gulmira Amirgalina (Tübingen – pottery)
Zhetesbi Sultanzhanov (Tübingen – urban planning and domestic architecture)
Sejdaly Bilalov (Almaty – fortifications)