Scholars studying the Silk Road have traditionally seen mountain ranges as obstacles standing in the way of merchants who plied the trade routes that connected China and western Eurasia. Now, a team led by archaeologist Michael Frachetti of Washington University in St. Louis and Farhod Maksudov of Uzbekistan’s National Center of Archaeology have discovered two previously overlooked medieval cities that flourished in the mountainous terrain of eastern Uzbekistan and were once stops on that fabled trade route. The cities, which are now known as Tashbulak and Tugunbulak, perch more than 7,000 feet above sea level. They were occupied during the height of the Silk Road, from roughly the sixth to eleventh centuries a.d., and would have been ruled for some of their existence by the Qarakhanids. (See “Unearthing an Elusive Empire,” page 34.)
Using lidar-equipped drones, archaeologists mapped both sites, revealing that Tashbulak was a modest city of about 30 acres, while Tugunbulak, three miles away, was a major urban center whose fortifications and multistory buildings sprawled across some 300 acres. “Tugunbulak is really a unicorn,” says Frachetti. “We don’t have comparable cities at that scale at that elevation in Central Asia.” Medieval sources refer to a city in what is now eastern Uzbekistan known as Marsmanda that was located “where the rivers froze” and where monthly fairs were held at which iron objects and weapons were sold. “We think Tugunbulak is a candidate for Marsmanda,” says Frachetti. “It matches up with certain details of that narrative.” Copious amounts of iron slag unearthed in one of Tugunbulak’s main towers are evidence that the city was a major center of metal production. Future excavations may yet help solidify the site’s identification as Marsmanda.
