In a groundbreaking discovery, archaeologists recently unearthed the remains of two medieval cities hidden in the grassy mountains of eastern Uzbekistan, challenging long-held assumptions about the fabled Silk Road and its network of trade routes.
The Silk Road, a vast web of interconnected trade paths, was historically thought to have linked lowland cities across Central Asia, facilitating the exchange of goods, technology, and ideas between East and West. However, recent findings suggest that high-altitude urban centres also played a crucial role in this historic trade network.
Using advanced remote-sensing technology, a team of archaeologists has located two previously unknown cities situated along a vital crossroad of the Silk Road. One of them, Tugunbulak, was a sprawling metropolis covering at least 120 hectares, remarkably positioned more than 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) above sea level.
“This discovery is reshaping our understanding of Central Asian history,” said Farhod Maksudov, director of Uzbekistan’s National Center of Archaeology and a key member of the research team.
The excavations suggest that Tugunbulak and its smaller counterpart, Tashbulak, were flourishing urban centres between the 8th and 11th centuries, during the height of medieval civilisation. These cities were part of the vast empire ruled by the Karakhanids, a powerful Turkic dynasty that controlled much of Central Asia.
Today, only 3% of the world’s population lives at such high altitudes. Cities such as Lhasa in Tibet and Cusco in Peru are rare examples of successful long-term human settlements in extreme environments.
The remarkable discovery, made in late 2024, was made possible through the use of drones and LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) technology, which allowed researchers to map the buried structures without disturbing the fragile landscape. The findings, published in the prestigious journal Nature, have been praised by experts worldwide for offering a new perspective on nomadic and urban interactions in medieval Central Asia.
The Silk Road was more than just a network of trade routes—it was a dynamic corridor where cultures, religions, and technologies merged. While major lowland trading hubs such as Samarkand, Bukhara, and Kashgar were well documented, the existence of highland cities like Tugunbulak and Tashbulak suggests that the region’s economic and political landscape was far more complex than previously believed.
The team first came across Tashbulak in 2011 while trekking through the rugged mountains of eastern Uzbekistan. Signs of ancient habitation, including burial sites, pottery fragments, and remnants of buildings, hinted at a lost city. However, the real surprise came when LIDAR scans revealed the outlines of a 12-hectare urban settlement at an elevation of 2,200 meters (7,200 feet).
“We were completely stunned,” Michael Frachetti, an archaeologist from Washington University in St. Louis, who co-led the study, told the BBC. “Trekking up there was already a challenge—we faced extreme winds, sudden storms, and logistical hurdles—so the idea that medieval communities thrived in such conditions was astonishing.”
Four years later, a local forestry official provided a key clue that led to the discovery of the much larger city of Tugunbulak. “The administrator mentioned that he had found ceramics in his backyard,” Frachetti recalled. “When we arrived, we realised his house was built on top of a medieval citadel—he was literally living on the remains of a lost city!”
Despite the remarkable findings, the biggest hurdle was proving to the academic community that these high-altitude cities were real and significant.
“When we first announced the discovery, we faced scepticism,” Frachetti explained. “People assumed we had found just a small fortress or an isolated castle, not a major urban settlement. Our challenge was to document the site scientifically to prove its scale and importance.”
In 2022, the team returned with state-of-the-art drones equipped with LIDAR sensors, which allowed them to digitally “peel back” layers of soil and vegetation. The scans unveiled a sprawling city layout, complete with defensive walls, guard towers, sophisticated architectural structures, and production facilities.
One of the most intriguing questions is why medieval communities chose such an extreme location for their cities. The researchers propose that Tugunbulak and Tashbulak were established in the highlands to take advantage of strong winds, which could fuel the fires necessary for iron smelting—a vital industry in the region.
Excavations have uncovered iron production kilns, indicating that metallurgy was a major economic driver. In the medieval world, iron was a highly prized resource, essential for making weapons, armour, and tools. “Whoever controlled iron had immense power,” Maksudov explained.
However, this industrial success may have contributed to the cities’ eventual decline. The region, once covered in dense juniper forests, appears to have been deforested over time to provide fuel for iron production. This, in turn, led to environmental instability, including flash floods, landslides, and avalanches, which could have made the area uninhabitable. Experts worldwide have hailed the discovery as a major breakthrough in our understanding of medieval urbanism and trade networks.
“Traditionally, scholars have focused on lowland cities when studying the Silk Road,” said Peter Frankopan, a global history professor at Oxford University. “But these findings reveal a more intricate web of trade and settlement patterns crisscrossing Asia. What an incredible treasure trove!”
Archaeologist Zachary Silvia from Brown University agreed, noting that high-altitude cities are extraordinarily rare in the historical record due to the extreme conditions settlers had to endure. “This research is an immense contribution to our understanding of medieval life in Central Asia,” Silvia wrote in a commentary on Nature.
The discovery of Tugunbulak and Tashbulak challenges traditional narratives about how civilisations functioned along the Silk Road. Far from being limited to lowland centres, the trade network extended into remote highland regions, revealing a previously unknown layer of medieval history. With new technologies like LIDAR and satellite imaging, archaeologists believe that more hidden cities may still be waiting to be found in the vast, mountainous landscapes of Central Asia.
