Travel across Zhambyl region and Southern of Kazakhstan.

"The lives of the heroes have enriched history, and history has embellished the heroes' deeds"

Jean de La Bruyere.

Sacred tour of Zhambyl region.

The residence of the ruler, by whose will the palace was built, was located 1 kilometer south-west of Akyrtas. on the top of a mountain range, from where the whole construction site was clearly visible. The remains of the ruins revealed that it was a quadrangular (40 x 40 meters) fortress with walls made of stone, towers at the corners and a deep moat around.
A squad is stationed here. The ruler's castle was located near the fortress. From it there is a hillock - tobe with a height of 5 meters and dimensions at the base of 25 x 30 meters. Such hillocks usually hide a complex of residential and utility buildings, ceremonial halls, protected by powerful walls and moats around.
Their planning and fortification is known from the excavations of castles in the Talas and Chu valleys. The places where the invited architects and a large army of workers and builders, stonecutters, brick-makers, and ceramists lived were also found out.
The rich "residential quarter" was located north of Akyrtas and was a complex of buildings surrounded by walls with an area of ​​2.5 hectares. There were residential estates in the form of rectangular-shaped plots surrounded by walls, where a residential building and a courtyard with a house-reservoir were located.
There are about ten such estates on the north side and two on the south. The area of ​​each of them is on average up to 1000 square meters. In addition to them, houses attached close to each other and having standard dimensions (10 x 10 meters) are marked.
Construction workers lived here. Those who mined clay, molded and burned the bricks necessary for paving the floors of the palace, lived at the northern foot of the Kyzyl-Tash mountain. Its northern slope, unlike the others, is covered with a thick layer of loess, which was an excellent material for the production of bricks and ceramics.
The remains of brick kilns, fragments of burnt bricks, and slags were found here. They occupy an area of ​​at least 1.5 hectares, which indicates a great need for a building site in burnt bricks.
Geographic coordinates of the Castle of the ruler of Akyrtas: N42 ° 57'00.08 "E71 ° 47'19.29"

Authority:
K.M. Baypakov. “Medieval settlements on the Great Silk Road”. Almaty, "Gylym". 1998 year.

Photos by
Alexander Petrov.