The settlement of ancient Otrar

Object II, on which the work of the second detachment of the South Kazakhstan expedition was carried out, is located in the northeastern part of the central mound of the settlement, on the eastern side it adjoins object I. On a site of 2500 sq. m four building horizons were investigated. Only a hillock in the southeastern part of the site turned out to be multilayered, which was initially taken for the remains of a large building. Ash patches, hearths, cesspools of the upper layer and the underlying building horizon (fourth for the entire area of ​​object II) were discovered in the rest of the site, which does not have hills, the stratigraphic position of which corresponds to the average building horizon of object I.

The layout of the lower building horizon is clearly revealed. Fifty premises related to various complexes were opened. Closely adjoining rooms are grouped around large courtyards (one of them measures 15x10.5 m) and on both sides of the street. The street section is open in the eastern part of the facility for 16 m, its width is 2 m.

Each complex has from one to three or four rooms sized 5X2.5; 4.5X3.75; 2.25X1.75 m. The complex, as a rule, includes a kitchen room, half of the area is occupied by a sufa with a stove built into it (diameters from 0.65 to 1.1 m). The surface of the sufa was heated by one- or two-channel horizontal chimneys, which ended with a vertical channel laid in the wall. A small hearth was sometimes set up next to the stove on the sufa. Opposite the mouth of the furnace, there is certainly a tashnau, the platform of which is lined with burnt bricks. Ancillary buildings (in multi-room complexes) or small bins (in one-room buildings) are located next to the living quarters. There are khums stuck into sufas or standing in bins.

All buildings were built of mud bricks measuring 45X20XX8-10, 32XI5XI0 cm (there is another fermat); from square burnt bricks or fragments, only platforms around the mouth of the tashnau or thin partitions inside the premises were laid out. There are also adobe walls, especially in the outbuildings. When erecting walls, as a rule, combined masonry was used: flat and on the edge with an inclination - a technique very characteristic of the late medieval architecture of Central Asia.

During the excavations, in addition to ceramics, items were found from bronze, iron, glass and paste beads, about two dozen coins, which in the general date the four building horizons of object II within the 16th-18th centuries.