Ancient Greek military camp discovered in Uzbekistan

Research conducted at one of the ancient hills in southern Uzbekistan has revealed traces of a Greek military camp dating back to the Hellenistic period. Archaeologists said the structure in the Iskandartepa area was not an ordinary settlement, but a military post used for a short period. This was reported by Greekreporter.

The research was carried out jointly by Czech and Uzbek archaeologists. A team led by Ladislav Stancho, a scholar at Charles University in Prague, has been studying the site since 2017. In 2021, specialists examined the area in detail using magnetometry and ground-penetrating technologies.

As a result of geophysical studies, an area of nearly six hectares was examined, and a defensive ditch almost 400 meters long was identified around the hill. Subsequent excavations showed that the ditch was 4 to 7 meters wide and up to 85 centimeters deep.

Archaeologists also found traces of posts inside the ditch that may have belonged to wooden defensive walls. This indicates that the area was used as a temporary but fortified military camp.

Large ceramic water jars, known as khums, were found inside the camp. According to specialists, these vessels were used to store water rather than food, as there were no permanent buildings or natural water sources in the area.

In addition, researchers identified about 90 oval-shaped pits in the eastern and western parts of the site. Some of them are believed to have been used as burial sites in later periods.

Among the finds were coins dating to the reigns of the Greco-Bactrian rulers Euthydemus I and Demetrius I. These findings indicate that the site is linked to events of the Hellenistic period in the 2nd century BC.

Scholars compared Iskandartepa with the Boysari Tepe site in Sogdiana and noted that its structure is one of the rare examples of Greek military camps in Central Asia.

Experts emphasized that the discovery once again proves that geophysical methods can help identify ancient monuments that are not visible to the naked eye.

Earlier, it was reported that traces of trepanation, or drilling into the skull, had been found on the skull of a child from the Bronze Age, dating back 4,000 years, in Uzbekistan.