Togolok is an archaeological site in the Murghab Delta,

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest and the Caspian Sea to the west. Ash ...

, located about 10–15 km south of

Gonur Gonur Depe () is an archaeological site, dated from 2400 to 1600 BCE,Frenez, Dennys, (2018)"Manufacturing and trade of Asian elephant ivory in Bronze Age Middle Asia: Evidence from Gonur Depe (Margiana, Turkmenistan)"in Archaeological Research in ...

(or about 40 km north of

Mary, Turkmenistan Mary (; Cyrillic: Мары) is a city on an oasis in the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan, located on the Murgab River. It was founded in 1884 about from the ruins of the ancient abandoned great city of Merv and was actually named Merv until 193 ...

). Togolok 21 is theorized to be an Indo-Iranian temple and fortress dated to the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, belonging to the late phase of the

Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) is the modern archaeological designation for a particular Middle Bronze Age civilisation of southern Central Asia, also known as the Oxus Civilization. The civilisation's urban phase or In ...

(BMAC). Togolok 1 area has also been excavated. Since 2014, the Togolok 1 site has been excavated by the TAP - Togolok Archaeological Project, directed by Barbara Cerasetti (FU Berlin, ISMEO), in collaboration with the University of Bern. According to the ''

Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture The ''Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture'' (''EIEC'') is an encyclopedia of Indo-European studies and the Proto-Indo-Europeans. The encyclopedia was edited by J. P. Mallory and Douglas Q. Adams and published in 1997 by Fitzroy Dearborn. A ...

'' (page 495), the Togolok temple contained rooms where traces of ephedra and

hemp Hemp, or industrial hemp, is a plant in the botanical class of ''Cannabis sativa'' cultivars grown specifically for industrial and consumable use. It can be used to make a wide range of products. Along with bamboo, hemp is among the fastest ...

were found along with implements for the preparation of a hallucinogenic beverage (which may be connected to the Hindu drink ''

soma Soma may refer to: Businesses and brands * SOMA (architects), a New York–based firm of architects * Soma (company), a company that designs eco-friendly water filtration systems * SOMA Fabrications, a builder of bicycle frames and other bicycle ...

'' and the Zoroastrian drink ''

haoma (; Avestan: ) is a divine plant in Zoroastrianism and in later Persian culture and Persian mythology, mythology. has its origins in Indo-Iranian religion and is the cognate of Vedas, Vedic . Etymology Both Avestan and Sanskrit derived from Pr ...

'').

Togolok Depe

The name 'Togolok' is also applied to another much older site in Turkmenistan known as 'Togolok-tepe'. This settlement started in the

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

during the

Jeitun Jeitun (Djeitun) is an archaeological site of the Neolithic period in southern Turkmenistan, about 30 kilometers north of Ashgabat in the Kopet-Dag mountain range. The settlement was occupied from about 7200 to 4500 BC possibly with short interr ...

period around 7000 BC.David R. Harris
Origins of Agriculture in Western Central Asia: An Environmental-Archaeological Study.
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. p61 It is located in the Kopet-Dagh foothills near the ancient Jeitun settlement. The site has been excavated and published in 1964 in Russian.

References

*V. Sarianidi, ''Le complexe cultuel de Togolok 21 en Margiane", ''Arts Asiatiques'' 41 (1986), 5–21. *V. Sarianidi, "Togolok 21, an Indo-Iranian Temple in the Karakum", ''Bulletin of the Asia Institute'' 4 (1990), 159–165. *V. Sarianidi
Margiana and Soma-Haoma
''Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies'' (EJVS) 9.1c (5 May 2003). *F.T. Hiebert, ''Origins of the Bronze Age Oasis Civilization in Central Asia'', American School of Prehistoric Research Bulletins 42 (2004). *M. Cattani et al.
The Murghab Delta in Central Asia 1990-2001: GIS from a Research Resource to a Reasoning Tool for the Study of Settlement Change in Long-Term Fluctuations
in: M. Doerr (ed.), ''The Digital Heritage of Archaeology'' (2002). *2019 CERASETTI, B. et al. Bronze and Iron Age urbanization in Turkmenistan. Preliminary results from the excavation of Togolok 1 on the Murghab alluvial fan. In C. Baumer, M. Novák (eds) Urban Cultures of Central Asia from the Bronze Age to the Karakhanids. Learnings and conclusions from new archaeological investigations and discoveries. SVA 12, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag: 63-72. *2022 CERASETTI, B. et al. The Rise and Decline of the Desert Cities: The Last Stages of the BMAC at Togolok 1 (Southern Turkmenistan). In C. Baumer et al. (eds) Cultures in Contact. Central Asia as Focus of Trade, Cultural Exchange and Knowledge Transmission. SVA 19. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag: 89-115. *2022 Billings, T.N., CERASETTI, B. et al. Agriculture in the Karakum: An archaeobotanical analysis from Togolok 1, southern Turkmenistan (ca. 2300-1700 B.C.). Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, "Effects of Novel Environments on Domesticated Species". DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2022.995490 Archaeological sites in Turkmenistan Former populated places in Turkmenistan Mary Region Murghab basin Indo-Iranian archaeological sites {{Central Asian history