The Turkmen State Institute of Culture hosted an open lesson on the “Turkmenistan: Gonurdepe – the capital city of the country Margush” topic which was conducted by Nadezhda Dubova, chief researcher, head of the Center for Human Anthropoecology of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, writes the publication News Central Asia.

The well-known Russian anthropologist Nadezhda Dubova has been working for 13 years with another outstanding scientist Viktor Sarianidi, who devoted his scientific activity to the study of a unique historical monument in the territory of Turkmenistan - the ancient settlement of Gonurdepe.

With his research, Sarianidi proved that the ancient country of Margiana or Margush with a prosperous capital Gonurdepe was the fifth center of world civilization along with India, China, Mesopotamia and Egypt.

According to Dubova, these days the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the archaeological monument is being celebrated, to which this meeting with the student and scientific community of the university is timed.

“Just the other day, my colleagues and I visited the archaeological site of Gonurdepe, one of the 300 known settlements of Margiana, where we inspected the maintenance, preservation and conservation of the settlement. Today, this unique archaeological site attracts scientists from around the world, where, before the pandemic period, we and other foreign archaeologists, together with our Turkmen colleagues, conducted systematic excavations”, the report says.

For the last 20 years, Nadezhda Dubova has been leading the study of Gonurdepe. During the presentation, the scientist spoke about the excavations, discoveries of recent years at Gonurdepe and the prospects for further research on the world-famous monument.

The material also noted that the expedition carries out its activities on the basis of the Agreement between the Ministry of Culture of Turkmenistan and the N.N. Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Gonurdepe is located in the Karakum desert, about 70 km from the city of Bayramali. Presumably a palace-temple city existed from the end of the 3rd millennium BC to the end of the XVI century AD.

According to the works of Sarianidi, Gonurdepe was one of the three centers of the Bactrian-Margiana civilization of the Bronze Age, which covered eastern Turkmenistan, southern Uzbekistan, northern Afghanistan and western Tajikistan.

Let us note that Gonurdepe is under the protection of the State Historical and Cultural Reserve “Ancient Merv”, the sights of which are included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.