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Ancient Merv, Turkmenistan: Research, Conservation And ARCHAEOLOGY INTERNATIONAL improve the basic condition of the cities, Ancient Merv, Turkmenistan: by removing modern agriculture from within the walled areas and generally research, conservation and management at improving access to the monuments. How- a World Heritage Site ever, there are daunting conservation issues facing the Turkmens. In 1999, Merv Tim Williams was declared a World Heritage Site and in In the first issue of AI, Georgina Herrmann described the Insti- 2000 it was placed by the international organization World Monuments Watch on tute’s initial involvement, from 1992, in survey, recording and the list of the world’s 100 most threatened excavation at the ancient Silk Road site of Merv. Now, a decade sites, and it remains on that list today. later, the Institute has embarked on a further collaborative project at this vast multiperiod site. A new project In the autumn of 2001, a new five-year Turkmen–British collaboration was started “I caught my first glimpse of the old cities World Heritage Site between the Institute of Archaeology and of the plain – the ancient capitals of Mar- The conservation and management of the the National Department for the Protec- giana. A long line of walls and turrets, cities and their hinterlands also requires tion, Study and Restoration of Historical dominated by some towering domes, broke urgent attention. In 1987 the Turkmeni- and Cultural Monuments within the Min- the line of the horizon . I could scarcely stan Ministry of Culture made the far- istry of Culture of Turkmenistan.4 The express my anxiety to proceed there and sighted decision to establish an archaeo- project aims to: then to this mysterious spot, concerning logical park to protect the walled cities and • improve our understanding of the sur- which so much has been written and so lit- the principal outlying monuments within vival and potential of the archaeological tle known.” Edmund O’Donovan, 1882.1 the oasis. This has already done much to resource • undertake active research into the cities, t is not only nineteenth-century 0 km 200 ARAL SEA to aid in both their management and European travellers who react with interpretation “ excitement and awe to the ruins of KAZAKHSTAN • develop local skills in archaeology, con- UZBEKISTAN the ancient cities of Merv. Today it is servation and management one of the world’s greatest urban N • promote the active management of the archaeological sites, positioned on one of Amu-darya archaeological resource the main arms of the ancient Silk Roads • make research data and interpretations that connected Europe and Africa to east- TURKMENISTAN available to the widest audience. ern Asia. The broad delta of rich alluvial KARA KUM Several more specific objectives have DESERT land created by the Murghab river, which Sumbar also been identified (although what can be Merv flows northwards from Afghanistan, forms Murghab achieved will be conditioned partly by the A Ashgabat an oasis at the southern edge of the Kara trek resources that can be raised). They are to: Mary Kum desert. Merv lies at the heart of this CASPIAN SEA IRAN Tedjen • develop an integrated site-management oasis, close to where the main channel of plan the Murghab flowed in antiquity. A suc- 0km2N • identify and tackle specific manage- cession of cities, together encompassing ment and conservation issues Erk Kala over 1000ha, developed there from the G • create an information platform, estab- fifth century BC to the present day (Fig. 1).2 lish essential reference collections, and Sultan Kala There is a long history of archaeological Muhammad Beni Makhan develop a GIS (geographic information Ibn Zayd mosque exploration at Merv. The site was intermit- Sultan Sanjar G system), to aid both management and mausoleum mausoleum G tently explored during the late nineteenth Gyaur Kala research and early twentieth centuries, before a Great Kyz Kala • develop several research projects aimed concentrated campaign of fieldwork was Little Kyz Kala G at improving our understanding and undertaken by the South Turkmenistan interpretation of the site, its hinterland Multidisciplinary Archaeological Expedi- and its role in wider social, economic tion (YuTAKE) in the mid-twentieth century and political spheres. and, most recently, the International Merv Specific issues for research include: 3 Project. Despite this, we still know rela- Bairam Ali Abdullah standing long-term urban dynamics, as seen through Khan Kala Khan tively little about the ancient cities of Kala monuments the development and infrastructure of the G Gyaur Kala Merv. We have broad dates for their devel- gates city of Gyaur Kala; the nature of the tran- opment, although uncertainty remains sition between Gyaur Kala and Sultan about some major events, such as when the Figure 1 The location of Merv in south- Kala, and the establishment of the early Islamic city of Sultan Kala was founded. ern Turkmenistan and (below) its ancient Islamic city; the organization and charac- We have some information about specific cities. The earliest city, Erk Kala, was ter of the Seljuk city; continuity, re-use and buildings and monuments, but we lack founded c. 500 BC. Around 280 BC it change in Mongol Merv; and the develop- insight into the broader rhythms and became the citadel for the much larger Hel- ment of strategies to communicate the details of urban life, such as the speed and lenistic city of Antiochia Margiana (known results of research to the widest possible fluctuations of urban development, the today as Gyaur Kala). In the seventh or audiences and, particularly, to facilitate range of industries and amenities, sanita- eighth century AD a new Islamic city, Sul- access for the local community. tion, trade, and the general organization of tan Kala, was built to the west, although We have begun to establish a pro- the urban community. Much work remains Gyaur Kala continued in use as an indus- gramme for future action by carrying out an to be done to develop more complex inter- trial suburb. In the early fifteenth century initial overview of the most pressing pretations of the dynamic cultures that the Timurid city of Abdullah Khan Kala management, conservation and research occupied what were once among the most was constructed to the south, to which was issues, in collaboration with the staff of important cities on Earth. added a suburb, Bairam Ali Khan Kala, the archaeological park and local-interest probably in the eighteenth century. groups. 40 ARCHAEOLOGY INTERNATIONAL Remedial work has begun. The staff of the archaeological park have started to tackle the situation with a programme of repair, together with temporary works such as buttresses to support the most vul- nerable structures. But, with a very small annual operating budget, there are limits to what can be achieved, especially given the scale of the problems. However, the ability of the park to tackle these issues is being steadily increased. A team from CRATerre- EAG4 has built a laboratory for the park to facilitate research into the chemical prop- erties of the soils and the best methods for developing sustainable new mudbrick and earth materials with which to repair and consolidate the structures. Experimental work and emergency remedial conserva- tion is now under way, in which both tra- ditional and modern techniques are being developed (Fig. 5). Training of members of Figure 2 A view of the medieval Great Kyz Kala at Merv. This is the most impressive the park staff in these methods is an impor- of the surviving köshks (defended houses) at the site, the massive corrugated mudbrick tant element of this programme.7 walls of which stand 12m high upon 4m-high platforms, making them the most striking A further important part of building and unusual buildings to have survived at ancient Merv. Note the eroding foundations conservation is the careful recording by of the walls. members of the archaeological team of the Building conservation have suffered the same fate (Fig. 3). As a re- areas to be conserved before the work During 2001–2002 we evaluated all the sult, there are features of the fortifications starts. In most cases this means photo- standing historical structures within the that now survive in only very limited graphic recording, but sometimes excava- core area of the archaeological park and locations. One of the unique aspects of tion is required. What is perhaps most assessed their current condition, research Merv is the ability of visitors to appreciate heartening is the way that the archae- and display potential, and conservation the scale of the urban development over ologists, the conservators and the park priorities. This has been instrumental in many centuries: a mainly uninterrupted managers are working closely together to shaping our emergency conservation pro- landscape is laid out before them, enabling provide an integrated approach to these gramme. them to visualize the impressive scale of complex problems. There are several ancient mudbrick the successive cities. This is greatly en- buildings still standing at Merv, many of hanced by the continuous circuit of the Previous excavations which are examples of a unique architec- defensive walls, which provides a focus for Over the course of the past century, many tural tradition (Fig. 2),5 but they are threat- the eyes when gazing across the expanse of archaeological interventions have been ened by wind, rain and, particularly, rising these once-great cities. The loss of large made at the site of Merv. We have managed groundwater. The fortifications of Sultan stretches of the circuit – all too possible at to locate some 230 separate trenches, rang- Kala and Abdullah Khan Kala (Fig. 1) face the moment – would severely detract from ing from small-scale exploratory holes to the same problems. For example, the exte- this experience. There are also several substantial excavations, the results of only rior faces of the walls of Abdullah Khan mudbrick monuments at risk, such as the some of which have been published.
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