Tepa-I-Shakh

the ruins of an ancient city in the Tadzhik SSR; situated on the left bank of the Kafirnigan River, near its confluence with the Amu Darya, at one of the fords on the trade route from India to Middle Asia.

Tepa-i-Shakh consisted of a rectangular citadel with mud-brick walls and round towers, an unfortified settlement, and a necropolis. B. A. Litvinskii’s excavations of the citadel in 1972 unearthed the palace building, with a columned hall containing painted and gilded clay and alabaster sculptures. Traces of handicraft production, including ceramics and bronze casting, were found in the settlement, and single-chambered and four-chambered structures with burials performed according to the Zoroastrian rite were found in the necropolis. Other finds included ceramic ware, terra-cotta, and ornaments, some of them from Mediterranean countries.

Tepa-i-Shakh arose in the second century B.C. and flourished in the first to third centuries A.D. It ceased to exist in the fourth century.