Toštemir Tepe
In Toštemir Tepe is the ruins of a small fortress about nine kilometers northwest of the town of Shahriston and five kilometers east of the village Uvak in northern Tajikistan in the province of Sughd . Toštemir Tepe is located at a point where two mountain foothills meet and was therefore of particular strategic importance.
The facility consists of a defensive wall that forms a 100 m square. In the northwest is the entrance with a tower in front of it. The actual entrance in turn had an anteroom and another room to the inside of the facility, obviously for defense reasons. Two small hills are to the west of the fortress. They are not excavated. Their function is therefore unknown. In a row with them, in the center of the fortress, is the main building on a plinth, which is about 17 × 17 m square. The base consists of two layers of clay blocks each 1.5 m high. At the time of the excavation, the entire building was still around 5.7 m high and still had two floors. The entrance is in the south, from there you get into an elongated anteroom, followed by a small room and then another elongated one. In the anteroom there were remains of a ramp that led to the upper floor. Seven other rooms in the basement are not connected to the ones just described by an entrance and neither have their own access from outside. This group of rooms consists of a central aisle and three elongated rooms extending from it. You were likely entered through the ceiling. The ceiling of the basement and the floor of the upper floor were made of wood. You can still see the holes for the beams in the walls. The outer walls of the building are three blocks of clay and eight layers high, while the inner walls are only one layer wide. The upper floor was entered through a second ramp, which is located on the west outside of the building. The upper floor is structured almost identically. There is a central corridor and four rooms on either side, all of which have vaulted ceilings. The doors also have arches.
The fortress dates from the 5th to 7th centuries AD. Four coins were found, one of which is described as Karakhanid . The facility was partially excavated in 1969 and from 1973 to 1975 by Pulatov with students from the history faculty of the Khujand Pedagogical University. He interpreted the building as a castle. Others see the building as a security system.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Nasiba S. Baimatowa: 5000 years of architecture in Central Asia, adobe vault from 4th / 3rd centuries. Jt. V. Until the end of the 8th century AD (Archeology in Iran and Turan, Vol. 7), Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2008, ISBN 978-3-8053-3906-3 , pp. 312-314
- ↑ Baimatowa: 5000 Years of Architecture in Central Asia , p. 313
- ↑ Baimatowa: 5000 Years of Architecture in Central Asia , pp. 313-4