Ayaz-Kala
Interesting facts
- The frontier fortresses guarded the oasis not only from steppe nomads but also from the Saka who lived in the delta of the Syr Darya.
- The vaulted corridor hidden inside the double walls of Ayaz-Kala 1 is about two metres wide, and the walls are up to 2.4 metres thick at the base.
- Its 45 half-oval towers were spaced at regular intervals of about 11.5 metres on the north side and 14 metres on the east and west.
- Ayaz-Kala 1 seems to have been garrisoned until about the 1st century CE and may have sheltered local people as a refuge into the early Middle Ages.
- The palace of Ayaz-Kala 2 crowns a conical hill about 40 metres high and was reached by a man-made sloping ramp some 50 metres long.
- The palace was probably the seat of a dihqan, one of the new landed nobles under the Afrighid Khorezmshahs; a similar manor, Yakke Parsan, lies 10 km south.
- A sizeable settlement once spread across the ground at the foot of the Ayaz-Kala 2 hill.
- Ayaz-Kala 3 is about two-thirds larger than the first fortress, with outer walls some 7.5 metres wide and an S-shaped entrance on the west side.
- The interior of Ayaz-Kala 3 is empty except for one corner, where a 40-room building covers about 2,400 square metres and may date from the 5th or 4th century BCE.
Why it is worth it
On a bare hill some hundred metres above the edge of the Kyzylkum Desert, the mud-brick walls of Ayaz-Kala still trace a near-perfect rectangle against the sky. South-west of it, on a lower conical hill, sit the remains of a later palace, and close by lies a third, even larger enclosure. Together the three fortresses form one of the most striking groups among the desert castles of ancient Khorezm, the oasis kingdom on the lower Amu Darya in what is now Karakalpakstan, in northern Uzbekistan.
The oldest fortress, known as Ayaz-Kala 1, dates from the end of the 4th or the start of the 3rd century BCE, when Khorezm had broken free of Persian rule. It was one of a chain of strongholds built along the desert frontier to shield farming settlements from nomad raids. Its walls, up to ten metres high, measure about 182 by 152 metres and are double: a vaulted corridor runs between the inner and outer shells, with a sheltered walkway along the top. Some 45 semi-oval towers were later added along them, and the single gate on the south was designed as a trap, a small chamber overlooked on every side from which defenders could shoot down on anyone who forced the outer door.
Ayaz-Kala 3 is a vast parallelogram of about 260 by 180 metres, used as a garrison or refuge in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, in the time of the Kushan Empire, with a 40-room monumental building in one corner. Ayaz-Kala 2 belongs to the early medieval Afrighid era, when local landowners lived in fortified manors: an oval palace of mud brick on rammed-earth foundations, crenellated and pierced with arrow slits, reached by a long ramp. It held ceremonial halls with columned ceilings, living quarters and a fire temple decorated with wall paintings, and was twice damaged by fire.
Getting there
Ayaz-Kala lies in the Ellikqala district of Karakalpakstan. The town of Beruniy is about 42 km away. Urgench International Airport (UGC) is about 57 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Ayaz-Kala is an archaeological site in Ellikqala District, Karakalpakstan, in northern Uzbekistan, built between the 4th century BCE and the 7th century CE. Situated on a hilltop overlooking the Kyzylkum Desert, the site encompasses the ruins of an ancient Khorezm fortress.
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