Khanlar

(until 1938, Elendorf), a city and administrative center of Khanlar Raion, Azerbaijan SSR. Khanlar is located on the right bank of the Giandzhachai River (a tributary of the Kura), 10 km south of the city of Kirovabad. It has a wine-making combine, a machine-repair plant, and other industrial enterprises, as well as a stock-raising sovkhoz. It was renamed in honor of the Azerbaijan revolutionary Khanlar Safaraliev.

Located outside of Khanlar is a large barrow burial ground of the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age (late second and early first millennia B.C.), first excavated in the 1890’s. The dead were buried in a supine or flexed position beneath mounds of earth or clay. The barrows of the nobility were distinguished by the large size of the burial chamber. The grave of a chieftan (barrow no. 1) revealed the bodies of killed slaves, as well as the remains of horses, a camel, and numerous objects. The various burials yielded many bronze weapons (swords, daggers, axes) and ornaments (temporal rings, bracelets, pendants), black clay pottery with geometric designs, and tools. A settlement of the same era, with remains of spacious clan homes and small subterranean dwellings, was found west of Khanlar.