ISAW’s Excavations in Bukhara (Uzbekistan) Featured in Archaeology Magazine
ISAW’s Excavations in Bukhara (Uzbekistan) are featured in the current January/February 2025 issue of Archaeology Magazine.
Since 2020 an international team, jointly directed by Jamal K. Mirzaakhmedov from the Samarqand Institute of Archaeology and ISAW’s Sören Stark, is conducting archaeological rescue excavations in the city center of Bukhara. A key role in this endeavor has been played by ISAW doctoral students Emily Everest-Phillips, Shannon Monroe, Vikentiy Parshuto, Jingyi Zhou, and Tianrui Zhu. Five extensive seasons of archaeological fieldwork have yielded a veritable treasure trove of new information about the long and complex history of Bukhara as one of the key cities along the so-called ‘Silk Roads.’ For example, we have now good reasons to assume that during the first half of the 3rd century BCE there existed a fortress in the area of the later city, which housed a Seleucid military colony; we also identified two successive city walls (5th century and end of the 7th century CE), indicating Bukhara’s urban growth during Late Antiquity. Our finds paint a dazzling picture of intercultural and transcontinental connectivity: from seeds of black pepper imported from south Asia to sumac, probably imported from the Middle East, from magnificent specimens of glassware and ceramics imported from 10th century Iraq to celadon ware and porcelain from Song period China. Countless objects tell stories of daily life, such as dice for gambling and divination, musical instruments, children's toys, spindle whorls, and inscribed vessels (one featuring the earliest Sogdian inscription ever found in Bukharan Sogdiana). Shannon Monroe’s forensic work on more than a hundred individuals interred in an early Islamic cemetery has yielded important new data on the health status of the urban populace at the eve of the Mongol invasion.
For more information on the results of the 2024 season see the forthcoming ISAW Newsletter. We are now looking forward to comprehensively publishing the results of five exceedingly rich seasons of archaeological fieldwork in the form of an edited volume.
See more from the issue at this link.
Remains of the corner tower of the 3rd century BCE fortress (photo S. Stark)