Archaeologists have found two lost cities in the mountains of Uzbekistan that were important hubs on the ancient Silk Road. Arkeonews reports this.
Only 3% of the world's population currently lives above 2000 m above sea level. Cusco (Peru) and Lhasa (Tibet) are two examples of such settlements. Therefore, scientists were surprised that settlements flourished at this altitude in the eastern mountains of Uzbekistan between the 6th and 11th centuries. They were detected using lasers mounted on drones.
One of the cities, Tugunbulak, was located at an altitude of more than 2000 m. Its area was about 120 hectares, and it was estimated that tens of thousands of people lived in it, making it comparable in size to Samarkand at that time. The second city, Tashbulak, was smaller. It contained some of the oldest Muslim burial grounds in the region. In the Middle Ages, this area was under the control of a powerful Turkic dynasty.
The discovery has important implications for understanding the evolution of ancient civilizations in mountainous regions. Such large, well-planned and fortified settlements of this time are rare at high altitudes. The discovery shows that there were political and industrial centers along the Silk Road in inaccessible mountainous areas, although conventional maps showed that the Silk Road bypassed the mountains.
According to the researchers, people may have decided to settle in Tugunbulak and Tashbulak to take advantage of the strong winds to smelt the iron ore that was abundant in the area. During preliminary excavations, industrial furnaces were also discovered. To do this, they probably cut down the dense juniper forest. As a result, they began to suffer from floods and avalanches, which led to the abandonment of the cities.
