Ulug Depe is an ancient

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

site in the foothills of the

Kopet Dag The Köpet Dag, Kopet Dagh, or Koppeh Dagh ( tk, Köpetdag; fa, کپه‌داغ), also known as the Turkmen-Khorasan Mountain Range, is a mountain range on the border between Turkmenistan and Iran that extends about along the border southeast o ...

Mountains in the

Karakum Desert The Karakum Desert, also spelled Kara-Kum and Gara-Gum ( tk, Garagum, ; rus, Караку́мы, Karakumy, kərɐˈkumɨ), is a desert in Central Asia. Its name in Turkic languages means "black sand": "" means sand; "" is a contraction of : " ...

Kaka District Kaka District is a district of Ahal Province, Turkmenistan. In ancient times the area was a fertile agricultural plain to the north of the Kopet Dag mountain range. A number of important Bronze Age sites exist in the area, such as Ulug Depe Ulu ...

(Kaahka) in the

Ahal Province Ahal Region ( tk, Ahal welaýaty; from fa, آخال, Axāl) is one of five provinces of Turkmenistan. It is in the south-center of the country, bordering Iran and Afghanistan along the Kopet Dag Range. Its area is and population 939,700 (2005 e ...

of south-eastern

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan ( or ; tk, Türkmenistan / Түркменистан, ) is a country located in Central Asia, bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the s ...

. It covers around 13 hectares and lies on a mound at a height of about 30 meters, displaying the longest stratigraphic sequence of Central Asia, from the Late Neolithic, represented by

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 ...

culture, until the pre-

Achaemenid The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest emp ...

period.

Discoveries

Excavations in the Late Bronze layers also found a "pressure set" for making soma drink. This set, similar to those found in

Gonur Depe Gonur Depe ( tk, Goňur 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 Archaeolog ...

, : "... consisted of a huge stone mortar and a pestle, a pressing stone with a half-spheric projection in its centre, and next to it a similar one with a half-spheric deepening."

Discoveries

See also

References

Further reading