During excavations at the Gonur-Depe settlement, Russian and Turkmen archaeologists discovered a seal with an image of a month and a characteristic arrangement of three stars. Presumably, the drawing on the seal is the oldest image of an astronomical object found on the territory of Turkmenistan, TASS reports with reference to the chief researcher of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the head of the Russian-Turkmen Margiana archaeological expedition Nadezhda Dubova.
“We have not previously found images that can be called constellations: many individual stars, crescents - these are also astronomical objects. But this seal is characterized by the fact that there are 3 stars located in a certain way.
It is interesting that the Turkmens have a constellation “Uch yyldyz” (“Three stars”). We assumed that this was an astronomical object, then it would turn out that this is the oldest such seal found on the territory of Turkmenistan, but in order to say this with complete certainty, the find must be assessed by astronomers”, - Dubova said.
The Gonur-Depe settlement has been an object of research for over 50 years as a monument of the Bronze Age. The country of Margush or Margiana, as this territory is known from ancient written sources.
Among the important finds from the 2024 expedition are the established production of gypsum and an animal skull similar to a horse's. Before that, eight horse remains had been found at Gonur-Depe, but only one horse skull.
N. Dubova also reported that archaeologists have been working for several years to create a catalog of finds for the entire history of the Margiana expedition, that is, for 50 years.
“These are tens of thousands of finds”, - the archaeologist noted.
Earlier, we reported that the next season of excavations of the Margiana archaeological expedition had ended in Turkmenistan.
