Sunken Silk Road city reveals Central Asia’s lost history

The sun had barely risen, but diver Elizaveta Bodrova was already preparing to plunge into the cold waters of Lake Issyk-Kul, where the ruins of a once-thriving city have lain submerged for centuries.
Situated on an ancient trading route between China and Europe, little is known about the settlement under Kyrgyzstan’s largest lake or how it flooded some 800 years ago.
With around 20 scientists, Bodrova is helping uncover its past, with findings that could shape understanding of Central Asian history.

“The visibility isn’t very good today, but I hope we’ll still be able to find the boundary of the settlement,” the 42-year-old volunteer told AFP before hopping off a motorboat.
The project, begun in 2024 and funded by the Russian Academy of Sciences, is the first major exploration since the site was rediscovered in the 19th century.
The settlement lies at the heart of the former Silk Road, which linked China to the Mediterranean from the 2nd century BC until the mid-15th century.
Although often associated with nomads, Kyrgyzstan has hosted multiple civilisations, including Turkic dynasties that traded between Europe and China.
“This is actually a blind spot in history, even though it is right in the centre of Central Asia,” expedition director Maxim Menshikov said.

“It is a very important chapter in the history of humankind, because it was the period that linked East and West during the Middle Ages. The Silk Road is not merely the history of a single region, it is the history of Eurasia as a whole,” he added.
The route through the settlement is thought to have been controlled by the Karakhanids, a Turkic dynasty that ruled much of Central Asia from the 9th to early 13th centuries.
Researchers believe the city, whose name and population remain unknown, may have covered five square kilometres.
Dating the remains has proved difficult, but traces of two cemeteries suggest they were built during the region’s early Islamisation. Discoveries include a decorated public building, possibly a mosque, bath or religious school.

After hours scouring the salt lake’s bed, divers returned with animal bones and pottery shards.
“The bones that have been found will enable archaeologists to determine their diet and age of the remains, as well as the diet of the people who lived in this region,” said Viktor Pozdnyakov, a diver and laboratory assistant.
“The pottery will enable us to date the finds and determine the approximate period more precisely. And, of course, to understand where it was produced, how and by what method,” the 22-year-old added.
At base, artefacts are preserved, catalogued and recorded. Among them was a child’s chamber pot, known as a “tuvaq”.

“These are still in use today in Central Asia and the Caucasus,” Menshikov said, pointing to evidence of daily life.
Although known to researchers since the 19th century, the submerged site has only been systematically explored in recent years, offering fresh clues to its inhabitants’ everyday lives.
Russian and Kyrgyz teams hope their systematic exploration will improve understanding of the region’s history.
“You could compare this research to that of Pompeii,” Menshikov said, referring to the Roman city buried by Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.
“They had a highly developed civilisation and culture. And in an instant, nature simply destroyed it all,” he said.
What submerged the city remains a mystery. Theories include a landslide that sent the settlement to the lake’s bottom, or gradual flooding caused by a “tectonic dam” — natural damming of a water body following an earthquake.
The probable cause was a “past seismic disaster”, said Andrei Strelnikov, a geologist with the Russian Academy of Sciences. — AFP