Sunken city discovered in Kyrgyz lake was a medieval hotspot on the Silk Road – until an earthquake wiped it out

Archaeologists have discovered a sunken medieval city under the waters of a salt lake in northeastern Kyrgyzstan.

The site was an important stop on one of the Silk Roads between China and the West during the Middle Ages. But it is believed that one of the cities there suffered a major earthquake in the 15th century, causing it to sink under water.

Now, researchers have found the remains of the sunken city while exploring submerged sites in Lake Issyk-Kul, high in the Tien Shan Mountains near Kyrgyzstan's border with Kazakhstan, according to a statement from the Russian Geographical Society.

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According to the Kyrgyz government, Issyk-Kul is one of the deepest lakes in the world, with parts of it reaching 2,300 feet (700 meters) below the surface. It has no river outlet and is slightly salty.

The researchers surveyed four submerged sites, ranging in depth from 3 feet to 13 feet (1 and 4 meters), near the northwestern shore of the lake — the medieval site of a predominantly Muslim settlement called Toro-Aegir.

“The monument under study is a city or large trading complex on one of the important sections of the Silk Road,” archaeologist Valery Kolchenko, head of the expedition’s Kyrgyz research team, said in the statement.

“At the beginning of the fifteenth century, as a result of a terrible earthquake, the city sank under the waters of the lake… The tragedy can be compared to Pompeii.”

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The team discovered the remains of several submerged buildings made of burnt brick, including one containing a millstone, evidence that it had once been a grain mill.

They also found collapsed stone structures, wooden beams, and the remains of a public building with exterior decoration that may have been a mosque or an Islamic school, known as a madrasa.

Some expedition researchers next to Lake Issyk-Kul, high in the Tien Shan Mountains near Kyrgyzstan's border with Kazakhstan. (Image source: Denis Davidov) Medieval Islamic cemetery

One underwater site revealed the remains of an Islamic cemetery covering an area of ​​about 14 acres (6 hectares) – roughly the size of 11 football fields.

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The team recovered the remains of two dead people from the cemetery, and found that their faces were facing in the direction of Mecca, which is now located in Saudi Arabia – a common practice in Islamic burials.

Archaeologists believe the tomb dates back to approximately the 13th century, when Islam was introduced to the region by the Golden Horde, a Mongol state that ruled much of Central Asia from the 1240s until 1502.

Before that, the region was ruled by the Karakhanids, a Turkic dynasty that had been based in Kyrgyzstan since the 10th century, the statement said.

Expedition leader Maxim Menshikov, of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in the statement that Toro-Aegir was a multicultural city when it was founded before the 13th century. “People here practice different religions: Tengrian paganism, Buddhism and Nestorian Christianity,” he said. He added that the introduction of Islam changed the character of the city, as people preferred to trade with other Muslims.

Another site in the sunken city contains several pieces of medieval Islamic pottery, including a large, intact water jar, which researchers plan to raise during a future expedition.

Three burials were also found nearby, but are believed to have been in a former non-Islamic cemetery.

The statement stated that the researchers also discovered the remains of mud-brick buildings, and drilled underwater at the sites to take sediment samples that could be used to reconstruct the stages of the city’s development.

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