Namazga-Tepe

Namazga-Tepe

Location in Turkmenistan
Alternate name	Namazga-depe
History
Periods	Bronze Age
Cultures	BMAC

Namazga-Tepe or Namazga-depe, is a Bronze Age (BMAC) archaeological site in Turkmenistan, some 100 km from Aşgabat, near the border to Iran. Excavated by Vadim Mikhailovich Masson, Viktor Sarianidi, and I. N. Khlopin from the 1950s, the site set the chronology for the Bronze Age sites in Turkmenistan (Namazga III-VI)

• Namazga IV around 2500 BCE shows proto-urban and village settlement patterns.
• Namazga V around 2000-1600 BCE is the period of "urban revolution" following the Anatolian model with little or no irrigation. Namazgadepe emerges as the production and probable governmental center, covering some 60 hectares, with Altyndepe likely a secondary capital. Around 1600 BCE, Altyndepe is abandoned, and Namazgadepe shrinks to a fraction of its former size .
• Namazga VI in the Late Bronze Age 1600-1000 BCE is characterized by the incursion of nomadic pastoralists from the Alekseyevka culture and/or Srubna culture.

There have also been detailed painted potteries located at this site.^[1]

See also

• South Turkmenistan Complex Archaeological Expedition

References

1. Langer, William L., ed. (1972). An Encyclopedia of World History (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Company. p. 17. ISBN 0-395-13592-3.

Bibliography

• V. M. Masson and V. I. Sarianidi, Central Asia: Turkmenia before the Achaemenids (trans. Tringham, 1972); review: Charles C. Kolb, American Anthropologist (1973), 1945-1948.

External links

• Altin Tepe entry in Encyclopaedia Iranica

Coordinates: 37°22′22″N 59°33′25″E / 37.37278°N 59.55694°E