Quloqlitepa: An Archaeological Settlement with a Citadel
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 5
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Uzbekistan
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Classical, Medieval
- Civilizations
- Sogdian
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Citadel
On this page6 sections
History
Quloqlitepa, also recorded as Quloqtepa, is an archaeological settlement with a citadel in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The site is dated to the fifth–eighth and tenth–fifteenth centuries, while Uzbekistan’s national inventory assigns its principal designation to the seventh–eighth centuries. It developed along a trade route connecting Sogdiana, an ancient cultural and political region of Central Asia, with Chach, the historical name for the Tashkent oasis and its surrounding territory.
A settlement on the Sogdiana–Chach route
Quloqlitepa may have been a small feudal estate. This interpretation is based partly on its smaller size and on comparison with nearby Chashtepa. By contrast, the larger Yunusabad Aktepa may have served as the hereditary estate of a local ruler. Together, Yunusabad Aktepa, Quloqlitepa, and Chashtepa belong to a settlement complex whose architectural traditions are closer to the palace-residence forms of Sogdiana and Ustrushana than to other regional models. Ustrushana was a historical Central Asian region known for fortified, palace-like residences.
Early study and protected status
N. G. Mallitsky mentioned Quloqlitepa in Tashkent Mahallas and Mauzas in 1927. The Tashkent Archaeological Expedition surveyed the site in 1968. Quloqlitepa is now included among Uzbekistan’s nationally significant immovable cultural-heritage sites. On 4 October 2019, it was placed on the national register of immovable material cultural-heritage properties under state protection. The property is state-owned and managed operationally by the Tashkent City Cultural Heritage Department.
Remains
Quloqlitepa occupies a rectangular area approximately 700 metres long and 200 metres wide in northern Tashkent’s Yunusabad district, near the Karakamish Canal. The site lies within Yunusabad’s fourth quarter and about 3.5 kilometres from Yunusabad Aktepa. Its central feature is a pyramidal citadel mound rising as much as 12 metres above the surrounding ground. A moat separated the citadel from the settlement, which also contained one or more habitation areas and two additional mounds positioned at some distance from the main complex.
The fortified residence
The citadel was a two-storey koshk, a fortified Central Asian residence that combined defensive construction with elite domestic or administrative functions. It stood on a platform reached by a ramp, with its entrance on the western side of the pyramid. The lower storey contained narrow, corridor-like storage rooms arranged in groups of two or three through all four sections of the pyramid. North of the entrance, a wide corridor contained the ramp leading to the second storey.
The lower storey was completely filled or blocked with packing material, a treatment also found at the citadel of Yunusabad Aktepa. Buildings belonging to a later phase have not survived, leaving the citadel mound and its internal arrangement as the principal architectural evidence for the site.
Ceramics and cultural connections
Pottery recovered in the survey is identical to material from Yunusabad Aktepa. The vessels are characteristic of the Tashkent oasis but are considered closer to Sogdian culture than to the local Kaunchi culture, an archaeological tradition of the Tashkent oasis and adjacent areas. The predominant forms were cups with loop handles and cylindrical upper sections, a type particularly popular in Chach during this period. These finds reinforce the site’s connection with the wider Sogdian and Chach cultural environment.
