Resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the Turkestan Republic
The resolution of 1917 found the Burana settlement in a deplorable state. In the beginning, the temptation to use bricks from the minaret noticeably increased among the population of Tokmak, and by 1919, due to the complete impunity of such actions, it took on a threatening character. This was partially halted by the spontaneously awakened interest of the broad public in everything around them, spurred by the revolution. Small notes and appeals began to appear in the local press, sounding the alarm about the fate of the Burana minaret, from which the surviving rows of masonry in the upper parts began to be actively dismantled. The cry "Save the Burana tower!" resonated among the Tokmak teachers, who decided to take on the responsibility for the monument's preservation and established oversight of the settlement. At that time, several random finds were registered at the Burana site.
Thus, in 1921, spring waters washed out several badly preserved copper coins of the 12th century minted by the Ilek dynasty. At that time, T. Mirgiyazov noted a large copper cauldron on three legs, found back in 1915 but not registered in literature at that time, the ends of which were designed in the form of a lizard-like dragon's mouth. The cauldron ended up with a local coppersmith in 1922, who used it to make several kumgans. This period also saw popular notes about the settlements of the Chui Valley, including Burana and its tower, published in various periodicals in Tashkent and Kazan in Uzbek and Tatar languages. Their author, T. Mirgiyazov, was then a teacher in Tokmak.
However, despite the initiative of some Tokmak residents to protect Burana, cases of using its burnt bricks for private construction continued to occur until the end of 1922, about which Turkomstaris was informed at that time. In the resolution adopted by the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the Turkestan Republic on March 27, 1923, No. 52, the Burana tower was included among the most valuable historical and archaeological monuments and transferred for protection to the jurisdiction of the All-Turkestan Committee.
As early as 1924, at the request of Turkomstaris (soon renamed to Sredazkomstaris), V. D. Gorodetsky re-examined the Burana tower, noting in his field report that around the settlement there were traces of a suburban surrounding wall in the form of separate segments of melted ramparts. At the same time, he visited the Ak-Peshin settlement. In the following year, 1925, he, together with Arabist Professor A. E. Schmidt, conducted a special expedition to clarify the historical topography of the delta of the Chu River and the western shore of Issyk-Kul, particularly the routes noted in medieval Arab sources. During the visit to the Burana settlement, some lifting material in the form of fragments of utensils was collected. The total area of the former city, surrounded by a wall, of which traces remained in the form of melted ramparts, was estimated by V. D. Gorodetsky to be about 20 square kilometers. In his opinion, Burana should be identified with the city of Pevaks, mentioned by medieval Arab geographers, and the ruins of Ak-Peshin with the remnants of Pendzhikent.
In the same year, 1925, at the request of Sredazkomstaris, a special inspection of the Burana tower was carried out by art historian B. P. Denike and architect M. M. Loginov to determine its condition and necessary measures for ensuring its preservation.
The study was accompanied by quite detailed photographic documentation of the exterior of this monument. B. P. Denike pointed out the close connection of the architectural forms and ornamentation of the Burana tower with the minaret of Uzgen, the 12th-century minaret in Bukhara, the minaret in Termez (423 AH—1031 AD), and the towers of the 11th-12th centuries in Khorasan, proposing to date the Semirechye monument to the 11th-12th centuries. Later, B. P. Denike more definitively attributed the Burana tower to the monuments of the 12th century and compared its ornamentation with the decor of the mausoleum of Yusuf ibn Kutaiba in Nakhichevan (1162 AD).
Beginning of repair and restoration work on the Burana tower
The primary repair and restoration work on the Burana tower began in 1927. Responsible for this work was M. M. Loginov. Unlike other similar assignments from Sredazkomstaris, the work at Burana was not accompanied by precise measurements and detailed drawings. The main focus was on restoring the lower part of the tower, which had been destroyed by local residents to nearly a three-meter height from the current ground level. Twenty new arch beams were installed in the empty nests of the octagonal base to replace the lost medieval logs. Apparently, these beams served not only for the horizontal tying of the rows of bricks of the main masonry and connecting it with the outer decorative cladding; it is quite possible that we are encountering one of the construction techniques that mitigate the effects of the frequent earthquakes in Central Asia on the structure. After that, the masonry of the shaft was restored, with all the surviving parts of the ornamental cladding preserved and only carefully secured. The most damaged area in the upper part of the tower's skeleton was filled with bricks. This repair, costing 3366 rubles, required the production of 30,000 burnt bricks corresponding to medieval sizes. A special furnace was built on-site for their firing.
The repair and restoration work of Sredazkomstaris in 1927 at Burana, as well as at all monuments in other regions, was preceded by an assessment of the technical condition of their lower parts, which was associated with the need to lay at least a small trench at the base of the object. The implementation of the mandatory archaeological supervision, justified in such work, was entrusted by Samkomstaris to M. E. Masson.
In mid-August, after completing the archaeological and topographical survey of ancient Taraz (Auliye Ata, now Jambyl, KazSSR), M. E. Masson, along with M. M. Loginov and collector T. Mirgiyazov, went to Burana for archaeological supervision of the planned trench at the base of the tower. The uncovering of a small area of the lower parts of the minaret lasted for two days, during which M. E. Masson familiarized himself with the settlement in general, made sketches (based on comprehensive surveying), and made some additional observations not noted by previous researchers.
Location of the settlement
The Burana settlement is located on a plain with a flat relief. In its clearly distinguishable main part (shahristan or shahridarun), it has an almost regular quadrilateral oriented to the cardinal directions, surrounded by now melted walls. The longer sides, extending in a straight line along the northern and southern facades, have been preserved for 570 m, while the shorter sides on the eastern and western facades are about 520 m long. Thus, the total area of the Burana shahristan slightly exceeds 28 hectares, which is close in size to that of the medieval settlement of Sayram. Once high earthen walls of the shahristan, with a width of up to 20 m in places, were made of powerful adobe blocks. In the spans of the gates, the walls were built of raw bricks (this is noticeable on the western facade). For greater stability and convenience of flanking fire against besieging enemies, up to a dozen or more projecting towers were arranged on the outer side at unequal intervals (but no less than 40 m), closely adjoining the walls of each facade. Their presence is indicated by the remnants of melted ramparts that have survived in some places. In the southwestern corner of the shahristan, some fortification structure adjoined the city steppes.
There were several city gates. It is presumed that there were two in the southern facade, with one located closer to the southwestern corner of the shahristan. In the western facade, the gates were located closer to the northern wall of the inner city; in the northern wall, they were almost exactly in the middle. The eastern wall suffered the most destruction from the waters of the Burana river. According to local residents, the particularly high water level in the late 1970s caused flooding in Burana. In 1927, from the eastern facade of the city wall, only miserable segments of flattened ramparts remained, extending 25 m, 70 m, and 80 m from south to north. In this part, the gates were approximately in the middle. Based on this, it can be assumed that the walls of the shahristan with its gates, which have reached us in ruins, were built with consideration for the layout of the already established settlement here.
The internal layout of the Burana shahristan is mainly determined by the streets starting from the city gates, leading to the main central place, possibly the market. To the east of it was a complex of some buildings, either of a cult or administrative nature, associated with the residence of the ruler. In general, without special archaeological reconnaissance, it was impossible to determine this. Near the northwestern corner of the shahristan, a walled area (70x60 m) is discernible in the micro-relief, which possibly indicates the location of a once large medieval caravanserai.
The shahristan was supplied with water through a canal derived from the Burana river. The bed of the main highway, now in the form of a ravine, begins at the southeastern corner of the shahristan, runs through its central part, and exits beyond its limits in the middle of the northern facade, near the gates. A ditch that passed near the minaret and at the northeastern corner of the shahristan served as a branch and simultaneously as a drainage outlet, flowing into the Burana river.
At one time, the shahristan was apparently relatively densely built up with buildings made of raw and burnt bricks of various standards, found almost everywhere in both fragments and whole forms. It is interesting to note the presence of elongated bricks measuring 27x13.5x4 cm — 26x13x4 cm. Among the lifting material, numerous fragments of unglazed and glazed utensils were found, including shards of so-called "simobkuzacha" (vessels for mercury), shards of various glassware; multicolored, sometimes quite large mastic and turquoise beads; pieces of oxidized or rusted iron objects, among which was a segment of a chain made of three large elongated rings. At the end of 1927, after the completion of repair work, several whole and broken gold coins weighing a total of 18 g were excavated by Kyrgyz people. They belonged to the Khorezmshah mint of the early 13th century.
Burials in the shahristan
As the development of a significant feudal city in Central Asia progressed, a suburb—rabada began to form next to it.
Sometimes, depending on the direction of the most active trade routes, for greater protection against enemy attacks or more convenient topographical location, part of the rabada from some side of the shahristan exhibited particular vitality, manifesting itself in urban-type planning. In Samarkand, for example, by the 10th century, such a suburb had formed in the territory to the southwest of the then shahristan (now the Afrosiab site). Its inhabited and designed area at that time was 1.5 times larger than the Samarkand shahridarun. When the area was enclosed by a special wall in the 11th century, it turned into "shahribirun" (i.e., "outer city"), a term that is sometimes replaced in specialized scientific literature by the designation "shahristan No. 2." At the same time, often not only the territory of the suburbs themselves but also the entire adjacent area of cultivated lands was surrounded by an additional special outer wall of the "city district," which was done both in the era of slave society and during feudalism.
At the Burana site, traces of a densely built suburb-rabada with urban planning were clearly not visible in the micro-relief. A small exploratory stratigraphic trench laid at the edge of the right bank of the main canal about 80 m north of the gates of the shahristan, and observations of the micro-relief of the adjacent surface showed that here, over a certain stretch, there is a continuous cultural layer in the form of waste produced during the firing of various ceramic utensils in a kiln (or kilns) of the late 11th-12th centuries. Fragments of a large glazed bowl—kasa with a typical brown ornament applied on a yellowish background, several fragments of large khum jars, large and small kuz jugs, various types of small jars, krinok, pots with ears for hanging while carrying, and the rims of lids of so-called "clay tables" were taken from here.
Beneath this layer of ceramic waste lie the burials of people, whose skeletons are stretched from east to west. Their skulls are turned to the west. Above one of these burials, which were not excavated in detail, a long burnt brick was found, on the front surface of which there is an image of a cross, roughly pressed into the wet clay with a finger. Unlike the four-pointed ornamental cross of Nestorian gravestones, the cross on the brick is six-pointed with a lower diagonal crossbar. Its appearance in Semirechye may be associated with the presence of some pilgrim from other Eastern Christian communities here at one time.
Such crosses on archaeological local monuments of Christianity are also found in other regions of Central Asia. In any case, it is evident that there was a time when local medieval Christians buried their dead on the lands of the northern part of the Burana suburb, in close proximity to the gates of the shahristan, along the major road leading from them to the banks of the Chu River. Later, apparently, their burials were prohibited here, and the Nestorian community was allocated a free plot for their cemetery in the southern suburban area, about 1 km southwest of the southern gates of the shahristan.
As noted by V. D. Gorodetsky back in 1924, remnants of the former outer wall in the form of melted ramparts were visible in some places around the quadrangular Burana settlement. To verify this information, M. E. Masson, on the second day of his stay, made pedestrian routes in three directions from the northwestern corner of the shahristan. One segment of the earthen rampart of the former surrounding wall was noted about 2 km to the northwest, the second—1.5 km to the northeast, and the third—to the southeast at a distance of about 4 km from the starting point. One of the local informants confidently stated that there are remnants of the second wall of the city district in worse condition. Due to the lack of time to verify this, as well as to establish the full length of the noted traces of the first outer wall, it was not possible at that time.
Ancient neighbors Ak-Beshim and Burana
The conclusions about the past of the Burana settlement, obtained as a result of a general archaeological and topographical overview, needed to be compared with data from some other large settlement in the nearby Chui Valley. Such settlements were identified as the ruins of the settlement called Ak-Peshin or Ak-Beshim, located 6 km northwest of the Burana minaret and about 8 km from present-day Tokmak. Their inspection by the archaeological group on the way back from Burana to Tokmak, given the limited time available, was conducted in four hours. In addition to a brief overview of the ruins, a comprehensive survey of the schematic plan of the central parts of the settlement was made, and a small stratigraphic trench was laid 300 m west of the original shahristan to verify the observation that a populated suburb adjoined it from this side.
The ruins of Ak-Beshim eloquently testify to two major periods of the city's development. At the end of the first, it consisted of a shahristan with an area of over 20 hectares, a high citadel in its southwestern corner, and a suburb, surrounded, according to local residents, by a ring of outer walls, standing in some places nearly 1.5 km from the shahristan. The remnants of it are easily distinguishable in the form of melted ramparts. The system of fortifications of the original shahristan, the strength of the profile of its walls, and the presence of significant flanking projections of former towers all convince us that the ancient builders placed great importance on the defense of the city against enemies. Judging by the lifting ceramic material, this occurred shortly before the Arab conquest of Central Asia. As the city grew intensively, a significant part of the populated rabada adjoining the shahristan on the eastern and southeastern sides had to be enclosed by a new high adobe wall with round towers, particularly marked in the southern part, facing the Kyrgyz Ala-Too ridge. Thus, a new urban territory of shahribirun was formed, covering an area of about 50 hectares. Almost in its center, there is a rectangular area (300x235 m), surrounded by a wall with nineteen towers, two of which on the northern facade are arranged on either side of the gates. Their true purpose can only be established through archaeological excavation.
Even a brief incidental acquaintance with the Burana and Ak-Beshim settlements, located nearby and forming along one of the former routes to Kuldja in the Middle Ages, allowed us to note several stages in their development that do not coincide.
The historical topography and lifting archaeological material clearly indicate that Ak-Beshim was established before Burana, prior to the Arab conquest of Central Asia, and developed as a fully-fledged early feudal city with a citadel, a powerful shahristan, and rabada. After some stagnation, and possibly even decline, Ak-Beshim began to grow again during the period of developed feudalism and formed a shahribirun in the rabada, surrounded by a special wall. The few archaeological finds of the 14th century found on the surface, mostly in the form of fragments of ceramic utensils, indicate that life in Ak-Beshim continued in some form even after the Mongol conquest.
The formation of the city on the site of Burana occurred much later. During the period of developed feudalism, this was reflected only in the form of a rectangular plan of the shahristan. Despite the presence of walls of the city district, there is no hint of the formation of a shahribirun. Although single specimens of glazed ceramics and bricks from the 10th century and earlier are found on the surface in some places, the most intense life of the city occurred in the 11th-12th centuries. The city was by no means ordinary and was characterized by intense construction of various buildings made of burnt bricks. Representatives of the ruling classes enjoyed a certain prosperity, which was occasionally disrupted but apparently not for long. This is evidenced by finds of precious metals. The most recorded finds are gold dinars, sometimes cut into pieces and mainly belonging to the Khorezmshah mint of the first quarter of the 13th century. This time is associated with the upper cultural layer of the settlement, and with the early years of the Mongol conquest, a new period of rapid and final decline began. In the following centuries, the city was sometimes given a clearly special administrative significance.