Site Description
The site indicates an early steppe presence in the Zarafshan Valley. About 5000 years ago it was "the largest metallurgical center of Central Asia engaged in export". It was abandoned after the arrival of the Indo-Iranians, around 2000 BC.
The city is believed to have been revived as a mining point to collect from nearby sources of turquoise. Established no later that 1500 BC, the city also served as an important regional agricultural and copper production center.
The town was discovered by a local farmer named Ashurali Tailonov in 1976 who found a copper dagger protruding from a nearby construction site. It was excavated by Abdullo Isakov and French archaeologists beginning in 1977.
Read more about this topic: Sarazm
Famous quotes containing the words site and/or description:
“The present hour is always wealthiest when it is poorer than the future ones, as that is the pleasantest site which affords the pleasantest prospects.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)