Toprak-Kala

Toprak-Kala was a royal city of Khorezm in the first centuries AD, and for a time its capital. The town was laid out as a rectangle of about 500 by 350 metres within high walls with towers, cut through by a central street, with residential blocks on either side and a temple area. In the north-west corner rose the palace, on a massive mud-brick platform towering over the rest of the city.

Excavations

The Soviet Khorezm expedition led by Sergei Tolstov began work here in 1938 and returned for decades. The palace proved to be a large complex of halls and courtyards, several with painted walls and clay sculpture: the Hall of Kings, with statues of rulers and their families, the Hall of Victories and the Hall of Dancing Masks among them. Archaeologists also found documents written in the Khorezmian language in Aramaic-derived script on wood and leather, the oldest archive known from the region, and coins of local kings, among them Artav, as well as of the Kushan emperors. The finest paintings and sculptures are now in the State Hermitage in St Petersburg and the Savitsky Museum in Nukus.

The city’s end

Toprak-Kala seems to have lost its role as capital in the fourth century, when the seat of power moved to Kyat (near modern Beruniy), though people lived here for some time afterwards. Wind and rain have since rounded the mud-brick walls into the shapes you see today.

Experiencing it

Climb the palace mound for the view over the grid of the old city and out to Kyzyl-Kala and the desert. There is little shade, so come early or late. A guide or a few minutes with a plan of the site makes the layout readable.