Jarqoʻton
Jarqoʻton (also spelled Jarkutan , Djarkutan , Dzharkutan and Dscharkutan ) is a prehistoric proto-urban settlement in Uzbekistan and a center of ancient civilizations in Bactria , the area from which the religious founder Zarathustra may come. The settlement on an old stream has two monumental buildings, a pottery district , a citadel and extensive grave fields . Jarqoʻton is located in the west of the Surxondaryo province , in the south of Uzbekistan, about five kilometers southeast of Scherabad and 50 km northwest of Termiz .
description
Jarqoʻton is one of the largest settlements of the late Bronze Age of the oasis culture (also called Oxus culture). The culture was widespread in southeast Turkmenistan , Uzbekistan, and northern Afghanistan . Their genesis and dating are unclear. Archaeological research, carried out mainly by Soviet scholars, has attempted to link both to the formation and movements of Aryans and the development of Zoroastrianism , but these theses are controversial.
The excavations in Jarqoʻton were started in 1973 by the Uzbek Archaeological Institute and resumed in 1994 as a cooperation project with the DAI . During the earlier excavations, the castle hill, the castle-like monument, another monumental building, the potters' quarter and more than 1500 graves were excavated and partially published. A relative chronology and relationships to other places of the Oxus culture were established for ceramics and small finds . Based on the pottery, the order of the settlement was divided into the phases Jarqoʻton, Kusali and Mullalli, which were set between the early Sapalli and the later Bustan.
The excavations show the northern half as the older part and area of the social upper class. The southern half consists mainly of simple mud houses and workshops. Rich Bronze Age houses have been uncovered under the remains of the castle wall. This proves that the wall either belongs to a late phase of the Bronze Age or even to the early Iron Age. In this context it is noticeable that only ceramics from the early Iron Age were found on the castle hill. A large mud-brick platform was found under a complex of buildings on Hill V, which apparently was used to widen the top of the hill. In the lower layers of the monumental building on Hill VI, with its rounded bastions eight meters wide and four meters protruding from the wide surrounding wall, a sophisticated room layout, comparable to the better-preserved buildings in Margiana (Togolok), was identified. Under the western half of the building there were traces of an earlier building with a regular layout and rooms up to 49 m² (7 m × 7 m) in size, as well as various types of kilns. The pottery dates this building to the earliest Jarqoʻton phase, which overlaps with the Sapalli culture. Under the eastern part of the monumental building there were workshops and ovens from the same period.
Between some other burials a Katakombengrab was found that a re-use has learned. The material from the cemetery serves as a key fossil for dating the settlement ceramics.
The excavations show that the sequence of phases in Jarqoʻton was more complex than assumed. The exploration of the castle hill is crucial in determining whether there was a continuity of settlement from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, or whether the place was abandoned for a while after the decline of the oasis culture.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ the South Uzbek Sapalli culture is a variant of the Late Bronze Age Namazga VI complex
Coordinates: 41 ° 1 '59.9 " N , 70 ° 55' 59.9" E