Travel Guide Gonur Depe

About 30 kilometres from Merv, including km of track. Enter $ 5 plus $ 10 for photos. A driver, a ground car and a guide are essential to carry out this visit.It is a Russian archaeologist who is looking for the ancient Margiane who discovered the impressive site of Gonur Rolf. The existence of this almost mythical city, which would have been founded in the second millennium before our age, was in all and for all mentioned in a letter from Darius I, a achaemenid king of the century's life B.C. which meant that "the country of Margush has become rebellious"… archaeologists have therefore explored the delta of the Murgab River before upgrading to Gonur Rolf. in the mid s a temple of fire. Successive excavations on the site have gradually revealed a huge necropolis, and a whole city, considered one of the major archaeological discoveries of recent decades.Turkmènes like to announce that this site is the cradle of the fifth great world civilization, alongside Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China. A cylindrical seal with a registration was found on the site: The researchers took it from the nw or c century B.C., which made it possible to assess the foundation of the city at a similar date, that is, at the time sumerian. The inhabitants of Margush probably came from Mesopotamia and Iran, taking their cultures and religions with them. The city obviously had intense agricultural activity: the soil still contains remnants of small canals, which were used to transport water from the Murgab delta, located three kilometres away. The decline of the city was probably caused by a change in the course of the river, which deprived the inhabitants of water. They then had to move, probably towards Merv.The site. The site covers an area of 20 ha. At the centre lies the foundations of a palace, as well as a temple and necropolis. The whole was surrounded by three rows of concentric walls, only two of which were updated at the moment. The first circle was that of the palace, the second that of the craftsmen. The city had three entries.The plans of the houses are very clearly visible on the ground. The houses were large, as they generally housed a whole clan. A place was reserved for sacrifices within each dwelling. The home was on the right and the ritual sacrifice of sheep was left on the left of every family altar. Gonur Rolf excavations revealed about ten well-preserved ceramic ovens. A dome emerges on the surface, while the oven itself, buried, is square shape. The cooking temperature rose to 530 ° C. Still, there are remnants of ceramics on the central pillar and walls of one of the furnaces. As for the debris of brown ceramics, they litter the ground on almost the entire surface of the site.