Ancient site · Settlement
Sarazm
A proto-urban settlement on the Zeravshan river near Panjakent, Tajikistan, and Tajikistan's first World Heritage Site. At its height it covered up to 90 hectares, with houses and workshops where copper and bronze were worked with techniques like those of Mesopotamia, Iran and the Indus.
Pottery from Turkmenistan and Baluchistan shows its wide contacts, and it may have been a centre for mining turquoise and metals in the Zeravshan valley. It shows farming towns reaching the northern edge of Central Asia long before the steppe herders came.
- Dates
- c. 3500–2000 BCE (radiocarbon range 3900–2100 BCE)
- Still standing
- No, or only traces
- UNESCO World Heritage
- Yes
- Location
- 39.51° N, 67.46° E
How we know
No writing existed; everything comes from excavations since 1977 and radiocarbon dates.
Nearby sites
- Shortugai c. 2000–1700 BCE
- Ai-Khanoum c. 290–145 BCE
- Tillya Tepe graves c. 1st century BCE–1st century CE
- Gonur Depe c. 2400–1600 BCE
- Merv city c. 550 BCE–18th century CE
- Altyn-Depe c. 3200–2000 BCE; urban c. 2400–2000 BCE