Summary of two campaign of archaeological fieldwork at the Gurukly Shaheri caravanserai site in the Serakhs Oasis, Southern Turkmenistan, 2012

Abstract

In 2012, as part of an ongoing research project titled “Reconstruction of the process of the formation of Central Asian urban settlements during the Early Islamic Period,”1 archaeological fieldwork started at the site of the early Islamic settlement of Gurukly Shaheri, 2 situated in the Serakhs oasis in southern Turkmenistan. 3 From the archaeological viewpoint, Gurukly Shaheri isacomplex of several man-made elevations scattered within an area of approx. 5 ha. Field survey and satelliteimagery analysis, which were performed last year, made it possible to locate the best preserved and the best prospective remains of the settlement. A large rectangular building situated in the south-east of Gurukly Shaheri was selected as the object of study. The performed geophysical survey and initial excavations allow a preliminary reconstruction of the building (Figs. 1, 2). The floor plan of the building comprises two adjacent 1 The project (No. 2011/01/N/hS3/02735) is funded by the National Science Centre and realised by the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw. 2 The fieldwork’s timeline was: March 5 – April 3, and September 14 – october 21. 3 As a result of a surface survey performed in 2007–2008 as a part of the “Settlement pattern in Central Asian oases in the preIslamic period: a spatial analysis of settlement in Serakhs oasis in southern Turkmenistan” project under theleadership of Professor B. Kaim, ceramic artefacts were found which unambiguously show that the settlement was an early Islamic one. courtyards with three coaxial gates. The first and westernmost is the main gate, which protrudes slightly from theface of the wall. The second is an interior gate, which, together with several rooms, partitions the yards into two independentcourtyards. Thethird gatecloses off theeastcourtyard and completes the arcade named rivaq that surrounds that courtyard. The courtyards and rooms are surrounded by a 1.5 m thick wall, reinforced in sections by semicircular buttresses (Figs. 3, 4). Unfortunately, the northern section of the building and all corners of the building were destroyed during military exercises held in thatareain thesecond half of the 20th c. Accordingly, at the current stage of work, the presence ofadditionalreinforcements of the building in the form of corner turrets can only be speculated.