Excavations of medieval settlements in Kyrgyzstan.

"10 miles from Tokmak stands the Burana tower, more than one thousand five hundred years old - the only monument of the city that was once there. And now this monument is falling apart. It is falling apart not because of dilapidation or the old age of its existence. No, citizens, Burana will stand for just as long... Last year (1918 M.M.) they began to undermine it at the base, and now some malicious ignoramuses, or whatever you want to call them, are not satisfied with this, decided to use the bricks from which it is built for their own needs, and began to break its top. Thus, this wonderful monument, if measures are not taken, will soon disappear from the face of the earth. I will not speak about the historical and archaeological value of this monument, but I will only say: it was not created by our hands, and it is not for us to destroy it. So, I hope on behalf of all those who understand the significance of this tower that these lines will be given due attention. For our Semirechye cannot boast of an abundance of ancient monuments. Once again I appeal: "Citizens, save the tower! And may my voice not be the voice of one crying in the wilderness!"

Newspaper "Voice of Semirechye" (1919, November 7, No. 106). Engineer Sergei Katsman.

Historical landmarks of Burana settlement.

At the end of the xixth century, Semirechye attracted the attention of a number of all-Russian archaeological organizations in connection with unexpected discoveries. In the summer of 1885, surveyor V. A. Andreyev, a prominent local historian who spoke several local languages ​​and authored a number of literary and ethnographic works, including translated folk works from Uzbek and Tajik, who was working on the survey of the cultural lands of Dzhetysu, discovered a large medieval Christian cemetery in the Pishpek area with a large number of gravestones on which decorative crosses, "anchors" and inscriptions in an unknown language were carved.
A few days later, a similar cemetery with similar gravestones was discovered by doctor F. V. Poyarkov 1.5 miles south of the Burana minaret, closer to the Aleksandrovsky ridge. The first information about this in print was published by F. V. Poyarkov (a message through the editorial office of the "Vostochnoye Obozreniye" newspaper, placed in No. 44 for 1885 on November 14, 20).
In it he wrote that "14 versts from the village of Bolshoy Tokmak, in the middle of an abandoned fortress (i.e. the Burana settlement. - M.M.) there is a high tower made of beautiful baked brick, partly destroyed by time, and partly dismantled by local residents, as were the surrounding structures, the ruins of which appear on the surface of the earth.
The old-timers do not know who built the fortress and the tower. The tower itself is good in technical and architectural terms and it is a pity that it may soon completely collapse." F.V. Poyarkov found more than 20 stones with images of a cross and inscriptions in an unknown language in three places.
There were crosses on all the stones, but there were no inscriptions on some. On one stone there was an image resembling a Russian "roller" used to thresh grain. Later, F.V. Poyarkov made small exploratory archaeological excavations at the Burana settlement.
At the same time, in the immediate vicinity of the tower, he discovered traces of monumental brick structures surrounding it with the remains of Muslim burials. The deciphering in St. Petersburg of inscriptions on stones with crosses from the vicinity of Pishpek and Burana, representing Nestorian epitaphs, aroused increased interest in the local cemeteries in scientific circles of the capital and Moscow.
During the intensified search for new similar objects, several pebbles-kayraks with Arabic inscriptions were found. Inspired by the discoveries, F. V. Poyarkov intended to begin more detailed explorations at his own expense the following year, but the then capital Archaeological Commission assigned the study of both Semirechensk cemeteries in 1886 to the senior official of special assignments under the Semirechensk military governor N. N. Pantusov.
He, in turn, entrusted the archaeological excavations to the learned gardener of the Pishpek state garden A. M. Fetisov. The work was mainly concentrated on the cemetery near Pishpek. On the surface of this cemetery, 611 gravestones were registered. Here, A. M. Fetisov uncovered 85 graves, and in the cemetery near Burana - 34.
From the report submitted by N. N. Pantusov to the Archaeological Commission, and his brief message to the Russian Archaeological Society, it is clear that the author was interested only in general questions about the burial methods of the Jetysu Nestorians, regardless of which cemetery a particular grave took place in.
Therefore, it is difficult to establish which of the finds should be attributed to the burials near Burana. Apparently, the types of burials were more or less common in their main features at both cemeteries. The dead were placed either in special containers at the bottom of single or family graves at a depth of about two meters (or even less) from the surface of the earth, or in side niches.
The body was placed with the head to the west, feet to the east, face to the north or upwards, and then covered with earth. The sides of the grave were lined with adobe bricks or boards, and the burial was covered from above with a relief vault made of two inclined adobe bricks.
In some cases, the head was either placed in a special niche or covered with a millstone. The grave was filled to the top with earth, and the surface was covered with burnt brick. Remains of decayed clothing, copper bracelets, drilled shells, beads, rings and earrings, mostly made of copper and silver alloy, were found on the skeletons.
Six examples of earrings were gold. In the cemetery from Burana, a cross was found on the cervical vertebrae of one deceased. In October of the same 1886, the inspector of public schools of the Semirechye region V. D. Gorodetsky examined the ruins of the Burana tower and, at the request of the professor of Tomsk University V. M. Florinsky, sent him a message about his observations.
They, despite some shortcomings, turned out to be the most detailed of all the descriptions of the tower that had previously appeared in print. V. M. Florinsky included V. D. Gorodetsky's text in full in his fundamental work on the monuments of the prehistoric life of the primitive Slavs.
Probably, due to a misprint, we should attribute the indication that the Burana tower was located "8 versts" to the southwest of Tokmak. The author further indicated that it was located "inside a quadrangle formed by a river and a rampart of considerable size, but not in the middle of it...
The side of the rampart closest to the tower... is open, but not along its entire length. The northeastern part of the quadrangle adjoins the aforementioned river, which washes away this side, revealing bricks of former buildings here and shards of clay pottery.
In one place on this side, two clay water pipes were found. The area of ​​the quadrangle is about 3 - 4 square miles and contains five "mounds", two of which can be called enormous, the rest are smaller, but also of considerable height and volume.
In addition, near the tower on the side facing Tokmak, there are ruins of a former building with a mass of baked bricks." Further, V. D. Gorodetsky gave a rather detailed description of the general appearance and structure of the tower, the height of which at that time, according to measurements made by one of the local topographers, reached 12 sazhens.
The almost monolithic masonry of the minaret, inside which only a narrow spiral staircase winds, according to V. D. Gorodetsky, gives grounds for the conclusion that "this structure does not correspond to a tower in the current sense, but to a compact column or pillar."
He noted the absence of traces of a staircase, along which in ancient times they could have penetrated the entrance opening, located at a height of 5 arshins from the current ground level. Having given a rather detailed construction and architectural description of the tower, consisting of a regular octagonal base and a round trunk with an internal staircase rising on it, the author drew attention to the presence of carved inscriptions on the wall to the left of the window, "apparently in Arabic letters."
At the end of the "introductory part" of the mentioned work by V. M. Florinsky, the following drawings are attached as illustrations: "View of the Burana tower from the west in 1886", its section and a photo of the general view of the tower in 1891.
The photo shows the inscription: "P. Borel" - obviously, the name of the author of the photograph. When visiting Burana, V. D. Gorodetsky probably also examined the excavations of the neighboring Nestorian cemetery. In the same year of 1886, he sent several photographs of Nestorian gravestones to the Archaeological Commission.
At the end of 1886 - beginning of 1887, D. A. Khvolson shared the results of deciphering the inscriptions of some gravestones in three preliminary articles and notes and established that they belong to the XIIIth - XIVth centuries. He drew attention to a fairly significant number of stones dating back to 1648 - 1650 (dated according to the Seleucid era, i.e. 1338 - 1339 AD) with the indication: "died of the plague".
From this, D. A. Khvolson concluded that the plague epidemic that raged in Western Asia and Europe in 1347 - 1351 began in Central Asia 8 - 9 years earlier. The awakened interest in Burana contributed to the fact that the finds of various ancient objects made in the area quickly became known to a wide circle of people and could be recorded by them in a timely manner.
One of the most notable finds of this kind was a hoard of gold coins. This treasure was discovered in the summer of 1887, when excavators working on the slope of the Burana sai found a vessel washed out by water, filled with whole and cut into pieces gold Cuvettes. Those who found them sold them for 20 kopecks apiece, and the prices of resellers quickly rose to 2 rubles.
By the time the news of the treasure reached the district autho
The body was placed with the head to the west, feet to the east, face to the north or upwards, and then covered with earth. The sides of the grave were lined with adobe bricks or boards, and the burial was covered from above with a relief vault made of two inclined adobe bricks.
In some cases, the head was either placed in a special niche or covered with a millstone. The grave was filled to the top with earth, and the surface was covered with burnt brick. Remains of decayed clothing, copper bracelets, drilled shells, beads, rings and earrings, mostly made of copper and silver alloy, were found on the skeletons.
Six examples of earrings were gold. In the cemetery from Burana, a cross was found on the cervical vertebrae of one deceased. In October of the same 1886, the inspector of public schools of the Semirechye region V. D. Gorodetsky examined the ruins of the Burana tower and, at the request of the professor of Tomsk University V. M. Florinsky, sent him a message about his observations.
They, despite some shortcomings, turned out to be the most detailed of all the descriptions of the tower that had previously appeared in print. V. M. Florinsky included V. D. Gorodetsky's text in full in his fundamental work on the monuments of the prehistoric life of the primitive Slavs.
Probably, due to a misprint, we should attribute the indication that the Burana tower was located "8 versts" to the southwest of Tokmak. The author further indicated that it was located "inside a quadrangle formed by a river and a rampart of considerable size, but not in the middle of it...
The side of the rampart closest to the tower... is open, but not along its entire length. The northeastern part of the quadrangle adjoins the aforementioned river, which washes away this side, revealing bricks of former buildings here and shards of clay pottery. In one place on this side, two clay water pipes were found.
The area of ​​the quadrangle is about 3 - 4 square miles and contains five "mounds", two of which can be called enormous, the rest are smaller, but also of considerable height and volume. In addition, near the tower on the side facing Tokmak, there are ruins of a former building with a mass of baked bricks."
Further, V. D. Gorodetsky gave a rather detailed description of the general appearance and structure of the tower, the height of which at that time, according to measurements made by one of the local topographers, reached 12 sazhens. The almost monolithic masonry of the minaret, inside which only a narrow spiral staircase winds, according to V. D. Gorodetsky, gives grounds for the conclusion that "this structure does not correspond to a tower in the current sense, but to a compact column or pillar."
With regard to all the aforementioned Central Asian minarets, V. M. Florinsky came to the conclusion "that they developed from the Indian foot on the basis of Buddhist ideas and belong to monuments of religious significance." In the summer of the same 1894, on his way to Issyk-Kul and the Ili River, the Burana settlement was visited by the orientalist V. V. Bartold, who examined it accompanied by E. P. Kovalev and the teacher of the Russian-native school in Tokmak V. P. Rovnyagin.
The future academician testified that the nature of the construction of the Burana tower and especially the ornamentation suggest that it was built by Muslims. The inscription on the left side of the tower window is an example of the Arabic-Syrian script that is found in Semirechye on some gravestones.
In his report, V. V. Bartold noted that the high hill located inside the quadrangular fortification, up to 3 fathoms high according to S. M. Dudin, was apparently made of adobe bricks. Traces of ancient graves were visible near the tower. The settlement itself near Burana, according to V. V. Bartold, was not very large, since no objects were found in the river beds and irrigation ditches above the Nestorian cemetery.
From the Christian cemetery, all the gravestones previously encountered on the surface and dug up were already certain by the time he visited the settlement, but sometimes whole pebbles with crosses were washed out of the ground by water along with fragments of dishes and coins.
Among the population, V. V. Bartold saw one gold coin with Kufic letters, which served as something like an amulet among the Kyrgyz at that time and was considered "a cure for various diseases, especially throat diseases." Information about the ruins of Burana did not pass by the Turkestan circle of archeology lovers, which opened in Tashkent at the end of 1895.
On the pages of the "Protocols" published by him for the first year of his activity, a short description of the Burana settlement and tower was placed, completed by V. P. Rovnyagin and sent by him to Tashkent to the vice-chairman of the circle N. P. Ostroumov, who read it at the next meeting on October 28, 1895.
From the compiled description, in a number of cases more specific than all the previous ones, it is clear that the space inside the walls of the Burana settlement ("located 12 versts south of Tokmak") at that time was still strewn with fragments of burnt bricks and broken ancient ceramic utensils.
To the northwest of it, in the direction of the ruins of the Ak-Peshin settlement, V. P. Rovnyagin avenged small mounds-burial mounds; in this he found confirmation that Burana and Ak-Peshin were the remains of one huge city, the ruins of which stretched from the southeast to the northwest for 15 miles in length and 5 miles in width.
He considered Burana to be the aristocratic part of the city, and Ak-Peshin to be its own kind with citadels, private houses and streets stretching in different directions. As a construction feature of the Burana tower itself, V. P. Rovnyagin noted the difference in the composition of the mortars of the internal masonry and external cladding (“the cement inside is clayey, and for cladding it is limestone”).
In addition to the general description of the tower, he indicated its height (77 feet), the diameter of the base (up to 20 feet) and the height of the prismatic base (up to 13 feet). The tower was guarded, a ladder was placed at the entrance to it. Around the tower, as was visible in the photograph he sent to N. P. Ostroumov, a small garden was laid out. In conclusion, V. P. Rovnyagin noted that the Kyrgyz legends about Burana and Ak-Peshin are very contradictory, but all informants attribute the history of Burana to ancient times.
The Turkestan Circle of Archaeology Lovers returned to the issue of the Burana Tower once again at a meeting on October 16, 1897, after hearing a report on the Uzgen monuments. Vice-President of the circle N. P. Ostroumov drew the attention of those gathered to the similarity of the Uzgen "tower" with the Burana tower.
At the same time, he "suggested that both of them served as minarets at mosques that have now collapsed, and that perhaps their construction dates back to the same historical period." At that time, it was not possible for the circle to resolve the issue of a more precise definition of this period.
In 1897, the above-mentioned report by V. V. Bartold about his trip to Central Asia in 1893 - 1894 was published. In it, the author provided a detailed analysis of historical information about the Chu River valley and compared it with the results of his observations on site, as if summing up the results of previous work on studying the Burana settlement.
At the same time, he abandoned his earlier assumption about the location of Balasagun, the capital of the Karakhanids, and then the Kara-Khytai gurkhans, on the site of the ruins of Burana. It seemed to him that if only the news about the location of Balasagun in the Chu River valley corresponded to reality, then "it could be identified with Ak-Peshin with a greater degree of probability, and Burana in this case could have been some kind of suburb...
We do not have enough data to finally resolve the issue of Balasagun." The simultaneous appearance of a new work by D. Khvolson on the Nestorian burial grounds from Semirechye exhausted the material on the Christian pebbles of Jetysu by that time.
At this point, the direct study of the Burana settlement stopped, the influx of fresh material ceased for a long time; the interest aroused by the novelty of the discovery of Christian medieval monuments cooled. The attention of the capital's scientists and local historians was diverted to solving other issues.
The stage of preliminary research of Burana was completed. The previous interest in the site gradually cooled among the local population. According to tradition, they still celebrated the sa'il at Burana. They sometimes went there for walks. In warm weather, regular gaps were held. But little attention was paid to the new finds. Some time later, the protection of the minaret ceased.
The extension ladder disappeared. The little garden that had grown since 1900 remained without watering for long periods and began to wither. By the time of work in the Burana area before the First World War by the Chui Survey Party of the Department of Land Improvements for Irrigation in the Semirechye Region, only two half-dried trunks and several similar dying trees remained near the minaret in the place of the former garden.
Soon they were also cut down by the residents of the village of Pokrovskoye after the unrest in Turkestan in 1916. The 1917 revolution found the Burana settlement in this state. At first, the temptation to use the bricks from the minaret began to noticeably increase among the Tokmak population, and in 1919, due to the complete impunity of such actions, it took on a threatening character.
This was partially stopped by the spontaneously awakened interest of wide circles of the public in everything around them with the revolution. Small notes and appeals began to appear in the local press, sounding the alarm about the fate of the Burana minaret, where at that time they began to vigorously dismantle the surviving rows of masonry of the upper parts.
The cry "Save the Burana tower!" found a response among the Tokmak teachers, who decided to take on the responsibility for protecting the monument and established supervision of the settlement. At that time, several accidental finds were registered at the Burana settlement.
Particularly characteristic in its content is the note published in the newspaper "Voice of Semirechye" (1919, November 7, No. 106) signed by engineer Sergei Katsman. "10 miles from Tokmak stands the Burana tower, more than one thousand five hundred years old - the only monument of the city that was once there.
And now this monument is falling apart. It is falling apart not because of decrepitude or the old age of its existence. No, citizens, Burana will stand for just as long... Last year (1918 M.M.) they started to undermine it at the base, and now some malicious ignoramuses, or whatever you want to call them, are not satisfied with this, decided to use the bricks it is made of for their own needs, and began to break its top.
Thus, this wonderful monument, if measures are not taken, will soon disappear from the face of the earth. I will not talk about the historical and archaeological value of this monument, but I will only say: it was not created by our hands, it is not for us to destroy it.
So, I hope on behalf of all who understand the significance of this tower that due attention will be paid to these lines. For our Semirechye cannot boast of an abundance of ancient monuments. Once again I appeal: "Citizens, save the tower! And may my voice not be the voice of one crying in the wilderness!"
Thus, in 1921, several examples of very poorly preserved copper coins of the 12th century minted by the Ilek dynasty were washed out by spring waters. At the same time, T. Mirgiyazov noted a find made back in 1915, but which remained unregistered in the literature at that time, of a large copper cauldron on three legs, the ends of which were designed in the form of the mouth of a lizard-like dragon. In 1922, the cauldron came into the hands of a local coppersmith, who used it to make several kumgans.
Popular notes about the ancient settlements of the Chui Valley, including Buran and its tower, placed in various Tashkent and Kazan periodicals in the Uzbek and Tatar languages, also date back to this period. Their author, T. Margiyazov, was then a teacher in Tokmak.
Despite, however, the initiative of some Tokmak residents in protecting Burana, cases of using its burnt bricks for private construction continued to be repeated until the end of 1922, about which the Turkomstaris was then informed. In the resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the Turkestan Republic dated March 27, 1923, No. 52, the Burana Tower was included among the most valuable monuments in historical and archaeological terms and transferred for protection to the jurisdiction of the All-Turkestan Committee.
Already in 1924, on the instructions of the Turkomstaris (soon renamed Sredazkomstaris), V.D. Gorodetsky again inspected the Burana Tower and in the field report it was noted that around its settlement there were traces of a suburban encircling wall in the form of separate sections of melted ramparts.
At the same time, he visited the Ak-Peshin settlement. The following year, 1925, he and the professor of Arabic studies A. E. Schmidt carried out a special expedition to clarify the historical topography of the Chu River delta and the western coast of Issyk-Kul, in particular, the routes noted in Arab medieval sources.
During a visit to the Burana settlement, some material was collected in the form of fragments of utensils. The total area of ​​the former city, surrounded by a wall, of which traces remained in the form of melted ramparts, was determined by V. D. Gorodetsky to be approximately 20 square kilometers.
In his opinion, Burana should be identified with the city of Navaket mentioned by medieval Arab geographers, and the ruins of Ak-Peshin with the remains of Penjiket. In the same year 1925, on the instructions of the Sredazkomstaris, a special inspection of the Burana tower with the aim of determining its condition and the necessary measures to ensure its preservation was carried out by art historian professor B. P. Denike and architect M. D. A. Loginov.
The study was accompanied by a fairly detailed photographic record of the external appearance of this monument. B. P. Denike, based on the architectural forms and ornamentation of the Burana tower, pointed out its close connection with the Uzgen minaret, the XIIth-century minaret in Bukhara, the minaret in Termez (423 AH - 1031 AD), and the towers of the XIth - XIIth centuries.
In Khorasan and proposed dating the Semirechye monument to the XIth - XIIth centuries. Later, B. P. Denike more definitely attributed the Burana tower to the monuments of the XIIth century, and compared its ornamentation with the decor of the mausoleum of Yusuf ibn Kutayir in Nakhichevan (1162 AD).
The first repair and restoration work on the Burana tower began in 1927. M. M. Loginov was responsible for this work. Unlike other similar assignments under the Sredazkomstaris, the work on Burana was not accompanied by precise measurements and the preparation of detailed drawings.
The main attention was directed to the restoration of the lower part of the tower, destroyed by local residents to a height of almost three meters from the current ground level. Twenty new juniper beams were then inserted into the empty nests of the octagonal base to replace the lost medieval logs.
Apparently, these beams served not only for the horizontal bandaging of the rows of bricks of the main masonry and its connection with the external decorative cladding; it is quite possible that here we are encountering one of the construction techniques that weakens the effect on the structure of earthquakes so frequent in Central Asia.
After that, the masonry of the trunk was restored, and all the surviving parts of the ornamental cladding were preserved and only carefully secured. In the upper part of the tower frame, the most damaged section was bricked up. This repair, which cost 3,366 rubles, required the manufacture of 30,000 burnt bricks corresponding to medieval sizes.
A special oven was built on site for their firing. The repair and restoration work of the Sredazkomstaris in 1927 on Burana, as well as on all monuments in other areas, was preceded by the clarification of the technical condition of their lower parts, which was associated with the need to lay at least a small pit at the base of the object.
The implementation of the mandatory archaeological supervision, justified in this type of work, was entrusted by the Sredazkomstaris to M.E. Masson. In mid-August, upon completion of the archaeological and topographic survey of ancient Taraz (Auliet, now Dzhambul Kazakh SSR), M.E. Masson, together with M.M. Loginov and collector T. Mirgiyazov, went to Burana for archaeological supervision of the planned pit at the base of the tower.
The excavation of a small section of the lower parts of the minaret lasted for two days, during which time M.E. Masson became generally familiar with the settlement itself, made sketches (based on a comprehensive survey) and made some additional observations not noted by previous researchers.
The Burana settlement is located on a plain with a flat relief. In its clearly distinguishable main part (shahristan or shakhri-darun), it has an almost regular quadrangle oriented to the cardinal points, surrounded by walls that have now melted. The longer ones, stretched in a straight line along the northern and southern faces, have survived for 570 meters, and the shorter ones - on the eastern and western faces - are about 520 meters.
Thus, the area of ​​the entire Burana shakhristan is slightly larger than 28 hectares, i.e. close in size to the medieval settlement of Sairam. The once high earthen walls of the shakhristan, with a width of up to 20 meters in the slough, were built of powerful pakhsa blocks.
In the spans of the gates, the walls were built of adobe bricks (this is noticeable on the western face). For greater stability and convenience of flanking fire from the outside of the enemies besieging the shakhristan, at some unequal intervals (but not less than 40 meters), up to a dozen or more towers were built protruding outward, adjacent to the walls of each face.
Their presence is now indicated by the sloughs preserved here and there on the earthen ramparts. In the southwestern corner of the shakhristan, some fortification structure adjoined the city walls. There were several city gates. In the southern face, there were presumably two, and one was located closer to the southwestern corner of the shakhristan.
In the western face the gate was closer to the northern wall of the inner city; in the northern wall almost exactly in the middle. The eastern wall was subjected to the greatest destruction by the waters of the Burana mountain mudflow. According to the local population, the Burana flood in the late seventies of the last century was the consequence of a particularly high-water mudflow.
In 1927, pitiful sections of flattened ramparts were still preserved from the eastern face of the city wall for 25 meters, 70 and 80 meters from south to north. In this part, the gate was approximately in the middle. Based on what has been said, it can be assumed that the walls of the shakhristan with their gates that have come down to us in ruins were erected taking into account the layout of the settlement that had already formed here.
The internal layout of the Burana shakhristan is determined mainly by the streets that began from the city gates and led to the main central place, possibly a bazaar. To the east of it there was a complex of some buildings: either of a cult or administrative nature, associated with the residence of the ruler.
In general, without special archaeological exploration it was impossible to determine this. Near the northwestern corner of the shakhristan in the microrelief a walled area (70 x 60 meters) can be seen, which possibly indicates the location of a once large medieval caravanserai.
The shakhristan was supplied with water by a canal that came from Burana-say. The bed of the main highway, now in the form of a ravine channel, begins from the southeastern corner of the shakhristan, runs through its central part and goes beyond its boundaries in the middle of the northern façade, near the gate.
The channel of the ditch, which passed near the minaret and at the northeastern corner of the shakhristan and flowed into the Burana River, served as a branch and at the same time as a drain. At one time, the shakhristan was apparently relatively densely built up with buildings made of adobe and baked bricks of various standards, found almost everywhere both in pieces and whole.
It is interesting to note the presence of oblong bricks measuring 27 x 13.5 x 4 cm - 26 x 13 x 4 cm. Among the excavated material, there were numerous fragments of unglazed and glazed utensils, including shards of the so-called "simob-kuzacha" (vessels for mercury), fragments of various glassware; multi-colored, sometimes quite large mastic and turquoise beads; pieces of oxidized or rusted iron objects, among which was a section of a chain of three large oblong rings.
At the end of 1927, after the closure of the repair work, the Kirghiz dug up several whole and fragments of gold coins weighing a total of 18 g.
They belonged to the Khorezmshah mint of the early XIIIth century. As any significant feudal city of Central Asia developed, a suburb, a rabad, began to form near it. Sometimes, depending on the direction of the busiest trade routes, for greater protection from enemy attacks or a more convenient topographic location, part of the rabad on one side of the shakhristan showed particular vitality, which was reflected in the urban layout.
In Samarkand, for example, by the 10th century such a thing had developed on the territory to the southwest of the then shakhristan (now the Afrasiab settlement). Its inhabited and urban area at that time was 1.5 times larger than the Samarkand shakhri-darun.
When the area was enclosed with a special wall in the XIth century, it turned into a “shahri-birun” (i.e. “outer city”), this term is sometimes replaced by the designation “shahristan No. 2” in specialized scientific literature. At the same time, not only the territory of the suburbs, but also the entire adjacent area of ​​cultural lands was often enclosed with an additional, special outer wall of the “urban district”, and this was done both during the slave-owning society and under feudalism.
Near the Burana settlement, traces of a densely built-up suburb-rabad with an urban layout were clearly not visible in the microrelief. A small exploratory stratigraphic pit, laid at the cliff of the right bank of the main canal approximately 80 meters north of gates of the shakhristan, and observations of the microrelief of the adjacent surface showed that here, over some distance, there is a continuous cultural layer in the form of a reject dump obtained during the firing of various ceramic utensils in a kiln (or kilns) of the late XIth - XIIth centuries.
Fragments of a large glazed bowl - kasa with a typical brown ornament applied on a yellowish background, a number of fragments of large korchag-khums, large and small jugs-kuza, various types of jars, jugs, pots with ears for hanging when carried, rims of the lids of the so-called "clay tables", etc. were taken from here.
Under this layer of ceramic rejects lie the burials of people whose skeletons are extended from east to west. Their skulls are facing west. Above one of these burials, which were not opened in detail, an oblong burnt brick was found, on the front surface of which there is an image of a cross, roughly pressed out on the wet clay by a finger.
Unlike the four-pointed ornamental cross of the Nestorian gravestones, the cross on the brick is six-pointed with a lower oblique crossbar. Its appearance in Semirechye, perhaps, should be associated with the residence here at one time of some pilgrim from other Eastern Christian communities.
Such crosses on local archaeological monuments of Christians are also found in other regions of Central Asia. In any case, there was obviously a time when on the lands of the northern part of the suburb of Burana, in the immediate vicinity of the shakhristan gates, on the main road leading from them to the banks of the Chu River, local medieval Christians buried their dead.
Then, apparently, they were forbidden to bury their dead here, and the Nestorian community was given a free plot of land for their cemetery, probably in the southern suburban part, approximately 1 kilometer to the southwest of the southern gates of the shakhristan.
As V.D. Gorodetsky noted already in 1924, around the quadrangular settlement of Burana, the remains of the former outer wall in the form of melted ramparts were visible in some places. To verify this message, M.E. Masson, on the second day of his stay, made walking routes in three directions from the northwestern corner of the shakhristan.
One section of the earthen rampart of the former encircling wall was noted approximately 2 kilometers to the northwest, the second - 1.5 kilometers to the northeast, and the third - to the southeast at a distance of about 4 kilometers from the starting point.
One of the local informants was convinced that in reality there were worse preserved remains of the second wall of the city district. Due to lack of time, it was not possible to verify this, as well as to establish the full length of the noted traces of the first outer wall.
The emerging conclusions about the past of the Burana settlement, obtained as a result of a general archaeological and topographic familiarization, needed to be compared with data on some other large settlement in the nearest region of the Chui Valley.
Such were the ruins of the settlement called Ak Peshin or Ak-Beshim, located 6 kilometers northwest of the Burana minaret and approximately 8 kilometers from present-day Tokmak. Their inspection by the archaeological group on the way back from Burana to Tokmak, given the limited time available, was carried out in four hours. In addition to a cursory examination of the ruins, a comprehensive survey of the schematic plan of the central parts of the settlement was made and a small stratigraphic pit was dug 300 meters west of the original shakhristan to verify the observation that a populated suburb adjoined it on this side.
The ruins of Ak-Beshim eloquently testify to two major periods of the city's development. At the end of the first, it consisted of a shakhristan with an area of ​​over 20 hectares, a high citadel in its southwestern corner and a suburb, surrounded, according to the local population, by a ring of outer walls, standing in some places at a distance of almost 1.5 kilometers from the shakhristan. Its remains are easily distinguishable in the form of a collapsed rampart.
The fortification system of the original shakhristan, the strength of the profile of its walls, the presence of significant flanking projections of former towers, all this convinces that, perhaps, the ancient builders attached great importance to the defense of the city from enemies.
Judging by the ceramic material that was lifted, this took place shortly before the conquest of Central Asia by the Arabs. As the city grew intensively, a significant part of the inhabited rabad, adjacent to the shakhristan from the eastern and south-eastern sides, at the turn of the Ist and IInd millennia AD had to be surrounded by a new high adobe wall with round towers, especially marked in the southern part, and facing the ridge of the Kyrgyz Ala-Too. 
Thus, a new urban territory of shakhri-birun with an area of ​​about 50 hectares was formed. Almost in the middle of it there is a rectangular area (300 x 235 meters), surrounded by a wall with nineteen towers, two of which on the northern façade are built on the sides of the gate.
Their true purpose can only be established by archaeological excavation. Even a short-term passing acquaintance with the settlements of Burana and Ak-Beshim, located nearby and formed in the Middle Ages on one of the former routes to Ghulja, allowed us to note a number of far from coinciding stages in the history of their development. Historical topography and archaeological material clearly indicate that Ak-Beshim was formed earlier than Burana, before the Arab conquest of Central Asia, and took shape as a full-fledged early feudal city with a citadel, a powerful shakhristan and rabad.
After some stagnation, and perhaps even decline, Ak-Beshim, during the era of developed feudalism, began to grow again and formed a shakhrn-birun in the rabad, surrounded by a special wall. The few archaeological finds of the XIVth century, mainly fragments of ceramic utensils, found on the surface indicate that life on Ak-Beshim continued to some extent after the Mongol conquest. 
The formation of the city on the site of Burana occurred much later. During the period of developed feudalism, this was reflected only in the form of a rectangular shakhristan. Despite the presence of walls around the city, there is no hint of the formation of a shakhri-birun.
Although here and there on the surface there are isolated examples of glazed ceramics and bricks from the Xth century and older, the most intensive life of the city occurred in the XIth - XIIth centuries. The city was far from ordinary and was distinguished by the intensive construction of various buildings from baked brick.
Representatives of the ruling classes enjoyed a certain prosperity, which was disturbed from time to time, but apparently not for long. This is evidenced by finds of precious metals. Most of the found gold dinars have been recorded, sometimes cut into pieces and belonging mainly to the Khorezmshah mint of the first quarter of the XIIIth century.
The upper cultural layer of the settlement is associated with this time, and with the first years of the Mongol conquest a new period of rapid and final fading began. In the following centuries, the city was at times given a clearly special administrative significance.
The identification of Burana with the settlement of Munora, mentioned in the XVIth century by Muhammad Haidar Guragani, is generally recognized among modern scholars. In this regard, of particular interest is the message of this author about the epitaph he saw and read on the slab of the "glorious imam", "the most perfect sheikh", "an expert in both the branches and the foundations of jurisprudence" of the capital's scholar Imam Muhammad-faqih Balasagunsky. Specifically, taking into account the general historical situation, it seems that in the transmission of the word hundreds in the date of death of this learned sheikh (as 711 AH corresponding to 1311 - 1312 AD, instead of 611 AH corresponding to 1214 - 1215 AD) an error was made in the analysis of the inscription on the monument or in the copying of the manuscript.
Muhammad-faqih was awarded the title of spiritual head of such an important administrative point as Burana in the 12th century, and he died at the beginning of the next century, shortly before the Mongol conquest of Central Asia. In the XIth - XIIth centuries, some circumstances forced the government administration to pay special attention to Burana, which is felt, in particular, by the fate of the local Christian community.
This is evidenced by the above-mentioned fact of the liquidation of its cemetery at the city gate of the northern façade of the shakhristan wall. The community was by no means significant. In its cemetery in the southern part of the suburbs, during many years of research, only a few more than three dozen gravestones with crosses and corresponding epitaphs were found.
It is significant that they mention only one scholastic Kubuk, teacher Ushin and priest Kutluk, and all the other gravestones belong to more or less ordinary people. At the same time, attention is drawn to the peculiarities in the writing of the letters and the presence of some expressions that distinguish the Buranin epitaphs from those from the monuments of the Nestorian cemetery in the Pishpek region.
Apparently, this is due to the later functioning of the latter. The earliest date on its gravestones is 1261, i.e. when Burana had already ceased to exist as a prominent settlement. The overwhelming majority of gravestones (several hundred) date back to the XIVth century.
The epitaphs of 1338 - 1339 indicate that the city's inhabitants died from a terrible plague epidemic that began in China in 1334. Later, it penetrated into the countries of Europe, where it killed about 24,000,000 people, i.e. almost a quarter of the entire population at that time.
In Semirechye, this plague to some extent affected, of course, not only the large Nestorian community, but also the entire settled and nomadic population of the region. However, it was not only the plague that caused the city to die out. It is known that the area in the Chu River valley did not suffer much during the Mongol invasion, since the inhabitants basically submitted to the conquerors without much resistance.
Meanwhile, according to the general political and economic situation, which has not yet been studied in sufficient detail, environment, already in the second quarter of the 13th century the decline of urban and generally settled cultural life began, as a result of which the inhabitants of the valleys of the Chu and Talas rivers left the cities.
A convincing answer to the question of what kind of city it was - the work on Burana in 1927 did not give. As before, the statement of V. Tomashek remained unshakable that it was in the vicinity of Tokmak that the capital of the Turkic Khakan was, but without the exact localization of its location.
V. V. Bartold once believed that the city of Saryg should be sought in the vicinity of Tokmak. Later, after visiting Burana, in his report on a trip to Central Asia in 1893 - 1894, with a number of reservations, he expressed the assumption about the identity of the Burana settlement with Balasagun and at the same time admitted that it could be a suburb of the latter, if only it was located on the site of Ak-Beshim.
Of some interest was the opinion expressed by V. D. Gorodetsky after his joint trip with A. E. Schmidt to Semirechye in 1925, which consisted in identifying the Burana settlement with Navaket. In the various transcriptions of the name of this city given in Arabic sources, one can assume that the authors indicated "prosperity" and "wealth", while in another spelling it can be translated as "new city", taking into account its relatively later formation compared to other cities in the valley.
As it turned out only much later from an unpublished manuscript by V. D. Gorodetsky, the argumentation for recognizing Burana as Navaket was based on N. I. de Goeje's indication of the distance between this city and Penjiket in one fars.
The detachment of Sredazkomstaris in 1927 was unable to obtain a more convincing identification of Burana with any medieval city. However, a number of new observations and facts were provided by the survey of the tower of this settlement itself.
In order to determine the condition of its lower parts and to identify their possible deformations, by agreement with the architect M. M. Loginov, a small stratigraphic pit was dug on the eastern side near the protruding corner of the octagonal base of the minaret.
Gradually, it was brought to a depth of 1.8 meters from the level of the modern surface of the earth. At the same time, it turned out that the rows of masonry of the tower located below the modern surface were destroyed by brick miners no less than the outer ones.
At the same time, they were convinced that during the construction of the monument, along with well-made brick tiles, both "under-burned" and "over-burned" got into the masonry, and not whole, but broken into pieces. The size of whole bricks was 25.3 x 25.3 x 4 - 5 cm.
The mortars that held them together were different: thus, the seams of the inner rows (18 to 24 mm thick) were only filled in the lower part with a thin layer of 2 - 4 mm alabaster and loess mortar (ganchkhak), applied directly to the brick, and then - with a significantly thicker layer of earth mortar, on which the next row of bricks was laid, which again had a thin layer of ganchkhak on top, etc.
Only in the outer rows of masonry was a solid alabaster mortar used with an admixture of pieces of crushed bricks and only partly earth. At a depth of 1.5 meters, a layer of solid masonry in one row of bricks placed on edge and laid in a "herringbone" pattern was discovered.
Measurements showed that the outer edge of this masonry projects outward from the front surface of the faces of the octagonal base by more than 30 cm. Below began the stone masonry on a mortar with an admixture of coal, which gradually expanded and descended at a distance of about 0.5 meters from the edge of the masonry and the bricks placed on edge; it turned out to be faced with correctly turned oblong stone slabs (30 x 15 cm), laid "rustic" with the seams cut in two grooves.
In total, 4 rows of masonry have been preserved in this place of the pit to a height, including seams, of 0.65 cm. The level of its lower row lies at a depth of about 1.8 meters from the modern surface of the earth. The rubble masonry with its facade tile cladding belongs to a base in the form of a stylobate, which is wider than the octagonal part of the tower. In plan it can be square (or square with chamfered corners) or a regular octagon.
The gap of 0.45 meters between the row of bricks standing on edge and the fourth row of stone cladding was probably also decorated, most likely with the same tiles. Observations showed that above the vertically standing bricks, at the same level with them, there were previously at least five rows of bricks laid flat.
The results obtained were recognized by M. M. Loginov as sufficient for the initial repair work of the season. To obtain more detailed data, including the depth of a solid foundation, it is necessary to carry out significant excavation work with clearing the lower parts around the entire monument, the costs of which could not be incurred with the amount allocated by Sredazkomstaris for the repair of Burana.
In the absence of additional funding, further excavation work was postponed until the future. Clearing of the areas immediately adjacent to the minaret (during the laying of the described (insignificant stratigraphic pit) of cultural layers showed that they consist entirely of construction waste of different ages.
In the upper layer up to 20 cm thick, animal bones were found, mainly rams. Below, fragments of ceramic dishes, mainly unglazed and partly green glaze, began to appear. At a depth of 1 meter, large pieces of korchag-hums, shards of glazed utensils from the XIth - XIIth centuries and single fragments of utensils began to appear.
The latter lay on the slope of rubble masonry. During partial clearing in the dump of a minaret of a small old repair masonry, a glazed ceramic shard from the XIth century was found. This could have served as a hint that in the indicated century, under the influence of earthquake tremors, the monument was already in need of repair, although it is possible that the shard got into the putty of a crack that formed later.
It is not precisely established when the first Muslim minarets appeared to proclaim calls to prayer from them. As is known, at first their construction in some parts of the established Arab Caliphate sometimes even met with a certain protest, as an unacceptable imitation of pagan cult towers and Christian bell towers.
But already in the first centuries of the wide spread of Islam in different regions where it became the dominant religion, several types of minarets appeared. Some of them, in particular, in Central Asia were independent structures in the form of round towers, sometimes very large in size.
In Turkestan, the question of minarets was raised before local historians as early as 1909. At the same time, difficulties in their study often arose immediately due to the complexity of determining the date of creation of certain objects. This also affected the Burana Tower.
Back in 1926, such an active researcher of Central Asian architecture as B. I. Zasypkin claimed that the next minaret of Kunya-Urgench (which he dated to the XIth century) "should be built in the city of Bukhara of the XIIth century, a minaret in the village of Uzgent and the Burana Tower near Tokmak in the Pishpek region, around the same time."
Regarding the conclusion of B. N. Zasypkin, it is necessary to make some clarifications. The dating of the minaret preserved in Kunya-Urgench to the 11th century is based on a lead slab found in the ground in 1900 within the boundaries of this settlement with an inscription that a certain minaret was built by the Khorezmshah Abu-l-Abbas Mamun II in 401 AH (1010 - 1011 AD).
The exact location of the ruins of this minaret has not been established. There are sufficient grounds to believe that the inscription does not refer to the minaret that still stands at the Kunya-Urgench settlement, but to another one that towered there at the end of the XIXth century.
The dating of 521 AH given by the author of "Kitab-i Mulla-zade" does not raise any doubts. (1127 AD), in which, under Arslan Khan Muhammad, son of Suleiman, a large minaret was built in Bukhara near Masjid-i-Kalyan, known in the people as the "Towers of Death".
As for the minarets of Uzgen and Burana, their construction cannot be dated "around the same time" (i.e. the beginning of the second quarter of the XIIth century), since they were built much earlier and not at the same time. zgent, lying on a busy trade road from Fergana through Osh to Kashgar, was already a prosperous urban administrative center for that time in the Xth - XIth centuries.
To this day, a separate, half-ruined minaret and three mausoleums located close to each other have survived from the feudal era. The southern one has two dates - 582 AH with different months indicated. One of them was not quite accurately published in 1897 by the Turkestan Circle of Archaeology Lovers - 1186 - 1187 AD instead of 1187.
The second - with the month of May 1186 AH indicated - was read by M. E. Masson in 1927 on site. At that time, due to the impossibility of obtaining a ladder due to the active Basmachi movement that had engulfed the region, M. E. Masson managed to notice from afar from the ground on the portal of the Northern Mausoleum in the Persian inscription only the date "on Wednesday of the fourth month of Rabi-II 547 AH"  (mid-1152 AH), and in the Arabic inscription the name of the Karakhanid ruler of the Turk Togrul Kara-Khakan Hussein ben Hasan ben Ali.
As for the half-preserved large Uzgen minaret, the flat ceiling of the corridor of its internal staircase is made of overlapping bricks. The entire outer surface of the minaret shaft is covered with solid, adjoining each other carved ornamental belts, among which a narrow belt consisting only of circles with a depression in the middle is characteristic.
It is a brick interpretation of the "papilla" ornament, common on monuments of the XIth - XIIth centuries. Along with it, in the external decoration, in addition to the figured brickwork, there is an alabaster cut-out ornament. It is noteworthy that the brick of the Uzgen minaret most closely resembles the brick Northern Mausoleum.
Based on the above and taking into account the history of Uzgen (Uzgend), the construction of the minaret can be attributed to the middle or second half of the XIth century. On the minaret of the Burana settlement, square burnt bricks were used (on average 25.3 x 25.3 x 4 or 5 cm).
The ceilings of the internal staircase leading to the top, although made, as on the Uzgen minaret, by overlapping bricks, but by a different method, in which the section does not produce a plane, but a vaulted rise. In the outer cladding of the minaret trunk, all the decorative brick belts of figured masonry alternate with wide smooth belts of simple building bricks, laid in horizontal rows.
There is absolutely no decoration of the nests of the external patterned belts with alabaster ornaments, as is the case in the Uzgen minaret. The Bukhara minaret of 1127 shows signs of architectural progress in comparison with the Burana and Uzgen minaret.
The Bukhara minaret uses large square bricks - 28 x 28 x 5 cm. The internal staircase to the top of the minaret is covered with a real arched vault, and inside the passage there are ornamental brick layouts. On the outer surface of the shaft of the minaret itself, there is carved brick, including in the inscription belts.
The entire belt of the upper inscription is laid out of large ceramic slabs (54 x 31 x 6 cm), covered with green glaze. The above facts are quite sufficient to recognize the Burana tower as having an earlier origin in the series of the three aforementioned minarets.
As for the date of construction of the Burana minaret, M.E. Masson initially thought that it could be attributed to the Xth century. This was reflected in the preliminary handwritten field report he submitted to the Sredazkomstaris upon his return to Tashkent.
Office processing of all field materials from 1927, using archaeological topographic data and stratigraphic observations of the cultural layers of the settlement, not to mention the above comparisons of the construction techniques of similar monuments in Uzgen and Bukhara, led M.E. Masson to the conclusion that the Burana minaret was most likely erected in the 30s and 40s of the XIth century.
This time falls during the reign of the Karakhand ruler Arslan Khan Suleiman (1031 – 1032 - 1056) in Semirechye and Eastern Turkestan. It is worth noting that the collector T. Mirgiyazov, a native of Tokmak who worked with M. E. Masson, while conveying in detail one of the versions of the local legend about the construction of the Burana tower by Arslan Khan, reported some details from the history of the reign of this sovereign that are common among the people.
In particular, T. Mirgiyazov mentioned that Arslan Khan received power in Eastern Turkestan and in Semirechye after the death of his father, that he was at enmity with his brother, who ruled in Talas (Dzhambul) and Isfidzhab (Sairam), and that towards the end of his life he was defeated by him, overthrown and captured.
All these facts are attested to by historical written sources and are associated specifically with the name of Arslan Khan Suleiman. It is impossible not to recall in passing that Arslan Khan Suleiman, despite his victories over the Karakhytai, whom he brought great fear to, was unable to maintain the authority of the head of state among other rulers of the Karakhanid dynasty.
If the Burana minaret was really built by his order, then perhaps by creating such a prominent monument he pursued the goal of somehow influencing the psychology of the Karakhanid people of his time, who were distrustful and even hostile to him as the head of the dynasty.
However, this is again only speculation, and the real decision on who was the real creator of the Burana minaret remained in question for M. E. Masson. The completion of the first repair and conservation work on the Burana tower was carried out by the Sredazkomstaris in 1928 under the leadership of N. M. Bachinsky.
Then an iron roof was laid over the surviving upper part of the minaret, a drainpipe was extended 3 m outside, and a door was installed and tightly nailed in the entrance opening leading to the internal spiral staircase. In connection with the liquidation of the Sredazkomstaris in Tashkent in 1929, as an organ of Central Asian scale, all subsequent measures for the protection and study of the monuments of the Burana settlement were carried out by scientific organizations of the Kirghiz SSR.

Authority and photographs by:
M.E. Masson. V.D. Goryacheva. "Burana. History of study of settlement and its architectural monuments". Academy of Sciences of Kirghiz SSR. Institute of History. Ilim Publishing House. Frunze, 1985.