Kakhramontepa in Southern Uzbekistan

Abstract

The paper presents a brief overview of the excavation results from the early medieval, 4th–5th-century AD fortress of Kakhramontepa in southern Uzbekistan, with a wide range of analogies from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Nearby burial groups were also surveyed, some of which belong to the same period. Based on the joint evaluation of the fortress, the find material, the structure of the burials, and written sources, the entire complex could be attributed to the Kidarites, one of the enigmatic peoples known from historical sources and difficult to identify in the archaeological record.

Keywords

• Central Asia
• Uzbekistan
• Kidarites
• Kakhramontepa
• Early Middle Ages