The Burana Tower
Last week I wrote about Cemeteries and mentioned the Burana Tower, which is situated 10 km to the South of Tokmok.
There is a legend that tells of a powerful khan who had a beautiful daughter, Monara, whom he loved very much and wanted to protect against the affections of local djigits – young men. As a result he built a tall tower in which he committed her. The girl grew up in the tower, looking out over the valley through the four windows in the cupola which looked out to the compass points – North, South, East and West. Servants brought her food and drink, delivering it in a basket after by climbing a ladder placed against the outside of the tower. On day the basket also contained a scorpion which stung her, and she died from the wound. The Khan was grief stricken and sobbed so loudly that the tower shook and the top part fell down.
In fact the tower is all that remains of the ancient city of Balasugan set at the foot of the Shamshy valley. Established in the 10th century on the site of an older settlement, the city was the birthplace of the poet Jusup Balasugyn (1015-?) who wrote an epic poem called Katadgu Bilim (=”The knowledge which brings happiness”), which has been translated into several languages – including a recent translation into English by Walter May.
With Kashgar, Balasagyn was one of the capitals of the Eastern Khanate when the Karakhanid state split up. (The capital of the Western Khanate was Samarkand). It was spared from destruction by Genghis Khan’s Mongols, and renamed Gobalik (=”good city”) in the 13th century, but it lost its importance and had disappeared by the 15th century.
There were major archaeological surveys of the site in the 1920s, 1950s and 1970s. The archaeologists discovered that the town had a complicated layout covering some 25-30 square kilometers. There were ruins of a central fortress, some handicraft shops, bazaars, four religious buildings, domestic dwellings, a bathhouse, a plot of arable land and a water main (pipes delivering water from a nearby canyon). Two rings of walls surrounded the town.
Although the Kharakhanids, (who built the city) practices Islam, they were tolerant of other religions and there are some examples of early Christian (Nestorian) inscriptions.
The entire museum complex today covers some 36 hectares. It includes the tower itself, reconstructions of mausoleums found on the site, a mound that is all that remains of the palace/citadel, a collection of balbals (grave markers used by nomadic Turkic peoples who used to roam Central Asia) and petroglyphs (paintings on stones) and a small Museum. An embankment on which were built the town walls, made of wattle and daub, would have surrounded the town.
The tower is believed to be a minaret – and if so it is the oldest in Central Asia. The name Burana itself is probably a corruption of the Turkic word Murana (= minaret). A similar, smaller construction is preserved at Uzgen, near the Uzbek border, complete with the domed crown and doorways from which the muezzin would call the faithful to prayer.
Originally 45 m tall only the bottom 25 m remain – the top was lost in an earthquake in the 15th century. The tower has an octagonal base and on this was constructed a conical tower. On the outside of the tower is pattern of relief work in brick. The diameter at the bottom of the tower is 9.3 meters and the top is 6m across. The remains were “canabalised” by local people who took the bricks from the base for their building – photographs of the tower before reconstruction in the 1970s can be seen in the small museum and show this clearly.
Inside is a narrow spiral staircase that is said to be original, leading to the top. Access would have been by removable stairs, or through the roof of the mosque – now there is a metal staircase leading to the door nearly 7 m above ground on the southern side. From the top it is possible to get a good view of the Chu valley and Tokmok. Also, it is possible to make out the lines of the walls of the settlement in the fields surrounding the tower.
At the foot of the tower are some reconstructions of the foundations of several ancient mausoleums made out of burnt brick. These foundations were uncovered in the 1970s. The different shapes and sizes indicate the different status and numbers of occupants.
Nearby is a small hill, measuring 100 meters square and 10 meters high. It apparently hides a palace complex (or a temple – the archaeologists aren’t sure), which existed in the 10th century – that is before the town itself came into being.
A little further away is a collection of 80 balbals (small statues of the dead thought to have been nomadic grave markers) dating from the 6th century, petroglyphs (depicting mammals, hunt scenes and stone implements), millstones and threshing stones, dating from the 2nd century BC, brought and placed here from all around the Chu valley, Lake Issyk Kul and further afield in the Tien Shan. There are other collections around the Chu valley and in Southern Kazakhstan. The Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University has helped to publish a booklet, “Sculptured stone figures of Burana” – which is available from the museum.
The small museum, established in 1976, has some artifacts recovered from the site, (jars, coins, a board game …), but it is claimed that the best articles were removed a long time ago to Moscow or St. Petersburg. In the Shamshy valley, itself, a wide range of Scythian artifacts have been found, including a heavy golden burial mask” – which currently is stored in the Historical Museum in Bishkek. The two rooms are crammed with crockery of different sizes – varying from small cups to vessels that hold more than 100 liters; ceramic and bronze lamps; coins from different ages; examples of different sorts of handicrafts from down the ages;; instruments for grinding corn; pieces of water pipes from the town’s water, irrigation and sewerage systems.
In the first six months of 2004, there were over 4000 visitors to the complex.
From the Tower, it is possible to head into the mountains to a picturesque valley to the Kegeti or Shamshy gorges.
Bishkek