The medieval cities of Otrar oasis, Kazakhstan: Kuik-Mardan Excavation and field season 2018, short preliminary report.
Средневековые города Отрарского оазиса, Казахстан: раскопки в Куйук-Мардане и полевой сезон 2018, краткий предварительный отчет.
The report is a short summary of the 2018 field season as written by the team of field supervisors - Sarah Ritchie, Katie Campbell, Kayrat Zhambulatov, Victoria Sluka and Gai (Gaygysyz) Jorayev. The data collected during the season then formed part of research work of the partner institutions and for individual researchers.
The field season was organised as a close collaboration between the UCL Centre for Applied Archaeology (part of UCL Institute of Archaeology), Margulan Institute of Archaeology of Kazakhstan (Ә.Х. Марғұлан атындағы Археология институты) and Otrar State Archaeological Museum («Отырар» мемлекеттік археологиялық музей-қорығы). The team undertook a short excavation at Kuik-Mardan and trained students in field documentation and finds processing techniques.
The archaeological site of Kuik-Mardan (also known as Мардан күйік, Күйік-Мардан, Куюк-Мардан) within the Otrar oasis, one of the most complex archaeological landscapes of Central Asia. It is located in Southern Kazakhstan (coordinates: decimal degrees: 42.902453° 68.248664°), near to the Syr Darya river.
The monument is protected by the Otrar State Archaeological Museum which is located in the nearby town of Shaulder, and the museum also acts as a research centre for study of the oasis, with many finds from excavations on display.
The dataset published here include:
2 PDF files that are reports in English and Russian languages
1 aerial image taken during the field season