Exploration of the stone fortress in Karatau

The Karatau detachment of the South Kazakhstan expedition of the Institute of History, Archeology, and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR researched the Karatau mountains Kyzylsai gorge, 5 km northeast Kentau city, Turkestan district, Chimkent region.

The Kyrkkyz stone fortress is located 15 km up the gorge from its southwestern entrance, on a high (60 m) mountain, protruding like a cape into a wide intermountain valley. The fortress is oval in plan (150x20 m), somewhat elongated from west to east, with a passage 3 m wide in the northeastern part. Its walls are made of dry gray and reddish slate slabs, the most massive slabs are laid in the base. The northern wall is better preserved (it is 5 m high and 1.5 m thick). The inner part of the fortress was built up with stone dwellings. Some of them adjoined the backside to the northern wall of the fortress. A road led from the gate along the eastern and southern walls. Another street from the gate led to the center of the settlement, where there was a large building with five rooms. There was probably a reservoir for storing water near the western fortress wall.

In the southern part of the fortress, a two-chamber dwelling was excavated, deepened by 1 m. Its walls, 0.8-1 m thick, were made of sweet flagstone and survived to a height of 1.5 m. The floor was earthen. In the front room (3.0 x 2.5 m), a sufa 0.5 m high was built along the southern, long flagstone wall. In the second, smaller room, a hearth was opened in the northwestern corner. Fragments of unglazed pottery, mainly khums, cauldrons and bowls, were found in the dwelling and on the fortress territory. Found two coins. Judging by the finds and data from written sources, the fortress can be dated to the 15th-16th centuries.

1 km up the gorge there is a small stone fortress Balakurgan, where similar ceramics were found, and 2 km there is a tortkul with fragments of dishes from the 15th-16th centuries.