Geography of Turkmenistan

1917-1946:

The first period can, moreover, be sub-divided into two stages:
From the year 1917 to the setting up in Turkmenistan of a local archaeological organization. The amateur archaeologist D.D. Bukinich discovered Namazga-depe in 1917, which became later one of the main sites of prehistoric Central Asia. A special organization was set up with responsibility for museums and the preservation of monuments, antiquity, art and nature; an institution that in 1921 assumed the name of “Turkestan Committee for the Preservation of Monuments of Antiquity and Art” (Turkkomstaris). The definition of the frontiers in Central Asia (1924) started a new stage in the exploration of the archaeological monuments of Turkmenistan. In the year 1924, D. Bukinich undertook the second exploration of Namazga-depe and raised the question of special excavations on that site and later in 1926 in Anau.
From the years 1929 to 1946. “The archaeological Section of the Institute of the Turkmen Culture” (Turkmenkult) was founded in 1929. In the early years of its existence the Institute had no expert archaeologists and was obliged to invite them to come from other republics. In the years 1928-1929, the Turkmenkult organized the Khaveran expedition. It was led by A.A. Semyonov who studied archaeological sites of the Kopetdag piedmont. The expedition of the State Academy for the History of Material culture directed by A. Yakubovskiy made an archaeological survey in the Northern Turkmenistan, with special attention to Kone-Urgench, the former capital of Khorezm. The Amateur Society of Archaeologists of Ashgabat explored several archaeological sites.



In the following years, a large role in the investigations of the prehistoric archaeological sites of South Turkmenistan was made by an archaeologist from Ashgabat, A. Marushenko (1904-1976). He worked in the Turkmenkult and in the Institute of History and Linguistics of the Turkmen branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1935 he opened Monjukly-depe and later (1937) discovered Jeitun (20 km north-west of Ashgabat; the local name is Chakmakdash beyikligi, from Turkmen – “a flint hillock” and Jeitun means a place for collecting water). In 1939 A. Marushenko excavated at Togolok-depe. In his article “Anau” published in 1939, A. Marushenko noted the existence of a Pre-Anau culture phase in South Turkmenistan. In 1934-1936 A. Marushenko excavated in Old and New Nisa and then in 1936-1937 in Merv together with B.B. Piotrovskiy from the State Hermitage Museum. However, the materials assembled by him were not published and were lost. S.P. Tolstov (1907-1976) established in 1937 the Khorezmian Archaeological and Ethnographic Expedition for investigation of archeological sites in Khorezm region (which included modern Dashoguz province of Turkmenistan as its southern part), mostly Antique and Medieval time.

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