Archaeologists have found the remains of two medieval cities in the mountains of eastern Uzbekistan, a discovery that could shift our understanding of the ancient Silk Road, as this trade route between the East and West was long believed to have linked lowland cities, BBC News reported in October 2024.
But using remote sensing technology, archeologists have now found at least two highland cities that sat along a key crossroad of the trade routes.
One of the cities – Tugunbulak, a metropolis spanning at least 120 hectares – sat more than 2,000 meters above sea level.
Uzbek archaeologists believe Tugunbulak and the smaller city, Tashbulak, were bustling settlements between the 8th and 11th centuries. The discovery, led by archaeologists from Uzbekistan’s National Center of Archaeology and 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.
