Dzhankent

Dzhankent

 

(Iangikent, al’-Kar’iat al’-khadisa, DikhiNau, Shekhrkent), a large trading center on the caravan route from central Kazakhstan to Khorezm and the Volga Region.

Dzhankent came into being in the first centuries A.D. and is first mentioned in written sources in the tenth century. In the tenth and 11th centuries the capital of the Oguz state, it was abandoned in the 12th century. The ruins of Dzhankent are located on the left bank of the lower Syr Darya, 25 km southwest of the city of Kazalinsk. Dzhankent was investigated in 1867 by P. I. Lerkh and in 1946 and 1963 by S. P. Tolstov; data were gathered on the city’s history and on the culture and occupations of the population.

REFERENCES

Lerkh, P. I. Arkheologicheskaia poezdka v Turkestanskii krai v 1867 g. St. Petersburg, 1870.
Tolstov, S. P. “Goroda guzov.” Sovetskaia etnografiia, 1947, no. 3.