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Lost Silk Road cities discovered in Uzbek mountains


The discoveries of these high-altitude medieval cities challenge long-held assumptions of the trade network.

The discovery led by Mr Maksudov, director of Uzbekistan's National Center of Archaeology and Michael Frachetti, an archaeologist at Washington University in St Louis, was made possible with drones and a remote-sensing tool known as lidar, which uses reflected light to create three-dimensional mappings of the environment. In 2022, the team returned with a drone equipped with a lidar sensor, which helped peel back the surfaces to unveil walls, guard towers, intricate architectural features and other fortifications in Tugunbulak. The researchers suggest that communities may have chosen to settle in Tugunbulak and Tashbulak to tap strong winds to fuel fires needed to smelt iron ores - which the region was rich in.

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