Ran Settlement
The paleo ethnographic detachment of the South-Kazakhstan complex expedition of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR continued to study the medieval settlement. The excavation (26х28 m) was laid on the western side of the settlement, near the fortress wall.
A manor workshop of a potter was discovered. The whole complex of the workshop was separated from the residential quarters of the settlement by a stone wall, preserved to a height of 0.5-0.6 m. Its width in some parts reaches 1 m. The main entrance to the estate was on the south side. At the ends of the eastern side of the wall there were stone structures in the form of small (2x2 m) towers. A passage connected them with the courtyard of the workshop. Camel bones and remains of stone hearths were found inside these round structures. It is possible that these are not towers, but buttresses. At the same time, they were probably of economic importance. Walls enclose the estate on four sides. The estate itself has a sub-square shape. Inside the estate there were ten rooms, three of which were residential, three were pottery workshops, and the rest were auxiliary buildings. Household pits, bins, and waste pits were found in the yard of the estate. The potter's residential house consisted of two rooms and adjoined the western wall, which, in turn, was in contact with the outer fortress wall. In the main living room there were two tandoors - hearths, embedded up to the throat in the sufa. In front of them is an ordinary tashnau with stone lining. A stone hearth of an interesting design was also found. It was covered with a stone slab, under which there was a furnace hole. The stone slab served as a kind of frying pan. The interior of the room was complemented by the usual khum and a few bins. This room led a separate exit to the street in the western wall. Consequently, there was a narrow street between the estate wall and the fortress wall.
Rooms 4, 5, 6 of the estate are reserved for workshops and are interconnected by passages. Room 4 was used for preparing clay and clay mortar when molding dishes, since in the center of the room there was a special recess in the form of a foundation pit (1.5x1.3x0.2 m) with smooth walls. Ceramics were dried and stored in the same room. In room 5 there was a tap hole with tashnau and quadrangular bins. In the northeast corner of the room, a cauldron was found containing coarse river sand used in ceramic production. Room 6 served as a dwelling or resting place, as evidenced by the wide couches on a carefully plastered sufa and tandoor.
The pottery kiln was located next to these rooms on the southeast side under the open sky and was enclosed on three sides by a stone wall. The oven had a width of 1.2 m, a length of 2.25 m, and a depth of 0.95 m. A thick layer of rhubarb seeds was found on the floor of the furnace. The rest of the area of the potter's estate was free, it was covered with a thick layer of ash. The finds are mainly represented by unglazed pottery (fragments of khums, khumchas, tagors, bowls). Bone spindle whorls, pendants, as well as two coins of the 16th-18th centuries were found.
In the vicinity of the ancient settlement of Ran, fields of ancient and medieval irrigation with an area of about 18 hectares were explored.