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Historical Seismic Disasters on the Fergana Section of the Great Silk Road

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Abstract

The results obtained in additional archaeological and archeoseismological research within the limits of the settlement of Balandtepa and the Kirkhujra fortress once again prove that the ancient city of Eilatan perished in the 1st century BC. The city of Pap (Bab) was built no later than the end of the 6th–beginning of the 5th century BC on the site of the settlement of Kyrkhujra, which is located 2 km south of the modern city of Pap, on the right bank of the Syr Darya River. During this time, it was destroyed several times by floods and remained under mudflow deposits. After each flood, the city was almost completely rebuilt. The city on Kirkhujra was destroyed at the end of the 4th–beginning of the 5th century AD due to a very strong earthquake. After this seismic event, people left the territory of the destroyed city and built a new city on the Balandtepa monument located 1 km west of Kirkhujr. Additional information obtained about the unusual arrangement of detrital horizons in the talus (the tail of the destruction of the northern fortress wall of Balandtep) indicates that the wall was destroyed not by one, but by three strong earthquakes, which apparently occurred at the end of the 6th–beginning of the 7th centuries AD. During each subsequent earthquake, fragments of bricks flew off to ever greater distances with a decreasing height of the wall. It turns out that each subsequent seismic event was stronger than the previous one. Earthquakes of this sequence can only have a swarm or doublet nature, which is typical for a given territory. The Pap swarm of 1984, which occurred in this zone, and the Gazli earthquakes of 1976 and 1984 in the zone of the South Tien Shan seismogenic zone evidence this. At the same time, an analysis of archaeological materials shows that, at the beginning or the first quarter of the 8th century, there was some kind of natural cataclysm, as a result of which the owner of the citadel and the inhabitants of the shahristan (inner city) moved to the rabad (outer city). Their places were taken over by artisans, who worked there until the last quarter of the 8th century.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank anonymous reviewers for their helpful and kind remarks, which significantly improved the content of this paper.

Funding

Field research at the archaeological sites of Kyrkhujra and Balandtepa and subsequent office work were supported by the National Center for Archeology, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan, grant Uzbekistan F3-202011021.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Center for Archeology, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan, 100125, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

    A. A. Anarbaev, S. Sh. Kubaev, Z. A. Karaeva & A. Nazhmiddinov

  2. Schmidt Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, 123242, Moscow, Russia

    A. M. Korzhenkov

  3. Mavlyanov Institute of Seismology, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan, 100128, Tashkent, Uzbekistan

    M. T. Usmanova, U. A. Nurmatov, T. Zakhidov & U. A. Yusupdzhanova

  4. Sergeev Institute of Geoecology, Russian Academy of Sciences, 101000, Moscow, Russia

    L. A. Korzhenkova

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  1. A. A. Anarbaev
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Anarbaev, A.A., Korzhenkov, A.M., Usmanova, M.T. et al. Historical Seismic Disasters on the Fergana Section of the Great Silk Road. Izv. Atmos. Ocean. Phys. 58, 1266–1288 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0001433822100024

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