Discovery Central Asia: Voyage. Kalas

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KALAS

The Castles in the Sand of Ancient Khorezm

these publications on the subject are available at Tourism Information Points in Khiva and Nukus and selected sales points throughout Uzbekistan.

S.P. TOLSTOV
FOLLOWING THE TRACKS
OF ANCIENT KHOREZMIAN
CIVILIZATION

visitors guide
& map
The Golden Ring
of Ancient Khorezm

There are few places in the world where an impressively large number of archaeological remains from a high culture can be found on a relatively small territory. Sumer, Ancient Egyp, Mohenjo Daro spring to mind. Ancient Khorezm ranks among them and is only now coming to the attention of a wider public. The Kalas, the castles and fortresses in the sand of the lost cities of Ancient Khorezm make for a fascinating visit and take you back to a time, when the Amu Darya delta was a thoroughfare along The Great Silk Road.

The sand from the banks of the river was used for the foundation of these fortress towns. The sand added a moisture-proof and shock-absorbing component in this once earthquake riddled area. Walls were built from large-format adobe bricks and considering that they often date back to the VI century, it is remarkable how have withstood the test of time, the fierce winds of the Kyzylkum desert and the extreme differences in temperature between summer and winter.

Each brick bore an imprint, the tamga. Whether the tamga relates to the master builder or the royal family is not quite clear. Raw clay was used as the binding agent; it could strongly fix even vaulted overlaps of trapezoidal bricks in the inside of a house. Naturally rounded stones served as wedges between bricks. Wood was not in use virtually, as it was always in short supply, but the ancient builders, as we can see, were able to manage skillfully manage without it.

As the fortressed towns and their population grew in size, with time the ingenuity of technicians and architects, who perfectly mastered the now long-forgotten secrets of making high-strength adobe blocks and bricks, was again challenged. A water supply system that tapped water from the aryk irrigation channels, was developed. Conduits of burnt clay, ceramic tubes, 50 60cm in diameter, were assembled into each other in such a way as to prevent leaking.

How each particular site was chosen for the construction of a Kala, what purpose each Kala served, what went on behind these strong walls, the chronicles of each city state are full of not decrypted pages that are sure to be make sense one day. We should not forget that only at the beginning of the 19th century did we come to understand the history of ancient Egypt, Babylon, Assyria. Toprak Kala, Ayaz Kala, Jampyk Kala, Gyaur Kala, to name but a few, have so far been off the beaten path, but have over the last decades drawn the interest of Russian, French and recently Australian archaeological teams and some of their findings are now available in English, with more publications on this fascinating area planned.

Discovery Central Asia #13