Sarazm: Proto-Urban Settlement of Prehistoric Central Asia

Sarazm is an archaeological site in the Zeravshan River valley of north-western Tajikistan, occupied from about 3500 to 2000 BC. It was one of the earliest proto-urban settlements in Central Asia: a large community of mud-brick houses, workshops and shrines whose people worked copper and bronze and traded with regions from the steppe to the Iranian plateau. In 2010 it became Tajikistan’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Setting and discovery

The Zeravshan, whose name is often translated as “gold-scattering”, flows west from the mountains of Tajikistan towards Samarkand and Bukhara in Uzbekistan. Sarazm lies on a terrace above the river, about 15 kilometres west of the town of Panjakent and close to the modern border. The valley offered fertile land for farming, water for irrigation and access to mineral resources in the surrounding mountains.

In 1976 a local farmer found a copper axe while working the land and reported it. The following year the Tajik archaeologist Abdullo Isakov began excavations, which he directed for many years. From the 1980s a joint Tajik and French programme, involving Roland Besenval and other specialists, added detailed studies of pottery, metals and dating.

The site’s name is often explained as coming from Persian words meaning “the beginning of the land”, although this is a later local name rather than anything known from antiquity.

The settlement

Sarazm was occupied over a long period, which archaeologists divide into four main phases, from the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) to the Early Bronze Age. The settlement spread along the terrace over a large area, of which around 16 hectares are protected as the World Heritage property.

Houses and other buildings were made of mud brick on stone foundations. Excavations have uncovered multi-roomed residential complexes, storage areas, courtyards and narrow lanes. Some larger buildings contained round or rectangular hearths and platforms that have been interpreted as fire altars or shrines, suggesting the importance of fire in religious life.

Archaeologists use the term “proto-urban” for Sarazm. It was larger and more complex than a farming village, with specialised crafts and long-distance contacts, but it lacked the scale, monumental public buildings and writing of the early cities of Mesopotamia.

Metallurgy and crafts

Sarazm is especially important for the history of metalworking. Excavators found copper and bronze tools, weapons and ornaments, along with crucibles, slag and other traces of metal production. The surrounding mountains contain copper, lead and other ores, and some researchers have linked Sarazm with early tin sources in the wider Zeravshan region, which would have been valuable for making bronze.

Other crafts included the making of stone and shell beads, pottery and textiles. Bead-makers worked turquoise, which probably came from deposits in the Kyzylkum desert, and lapis lazuli from the mountains of Badakhshan in north-eastern Afghanistan.

Trade and contacts

Pottery and other finds show that Sarazm was connected to several cultural worlds. Some of its pottery resembles that of the Namazga cultures of southern Turkmenistan, while other types show links with Baluchistan and the Iranian plateau, including sites such as Shahr-i Sokhta. Material connected with the pastoral peoples of the northern steppes also appears.

Sarazm therefore stood at a crossroads between the farmers of the south, the herders of the steppe and the mountain sources of metals and stones. Archaeologists see it as an early example of the exchange networks that, thousands of years later, would form part of the Silk Roads. It belongs to the same broad world of interaction that linked Central Asia with the Indus Valley Civilisation.

The Princess of Sarazm

One of the most famous discoveries at Sarazm is the burial of a woman popularly called the “Princess of Sarazm”, found in 1985. She was buried with rich ornaments, including bracelets made of marine shell, and beads of lapis lazuli, turquoise, carnelian and silver, as well as a bronze mirror.

The shells must have come from the coasts of the Arabian Sea or the Persian Gulf, hundreds of kilometres away, and the stones from several distant sources. Her real name and position are unknown, and the title “princess” is a modern nickname. Her grave nevertheless shows that some people at Sarazm had access to prestigious goods and that society was becoming more unequal.

Decline and legacy

Sarazm was abandoned around the end of the 3rd millennium BC, for reasons that are not fully understood. Changes in trade routes, the rise of other centres in the oases of Central Asia and the arrival of new pastoral groups have all been suggested.

The site remains a key reference for understanding how settled life, metal production and trade developed in Central Asia between the Neolithic farming villages of the region, such as Mehrgarh far to the south, and the later Bronze Age oasis civilization of Bactria and Margiana. Inscribed by UNESCO in 2010, it is protected as an archaeological park, with shelters over some excavated areas.

Timeline

• c. 3500 BC: Settlement at Sarazm begins in the Chalcolithic period.
• c. 3000 BC: Sarazm flourishes as a centre of metalworking and trade.
• c. 2000 BC: The settlement is abandoned.
• 1976: A farmer finds a copper axe at the site.
• 1977: Abdullo Isakov begins excavations.
• 1985: The burial of the “Princess of Sarazm” is discovered.
• 2010: Sarazm becomes Tajikistan’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

Sarazm shows that Central Asia was not a remote periphery but an active participant in the early development of metallurgy and long-distance trade. Its finds connect the steppe, the Iranian plateau and South Asia, and they help explain how the networks that later became the Silk Roads first took shape.