Kyrk-Kyz-Kala

The site of Kyrk-Kyz-Kala was found in 1938, twenty-seven kilometres north of Beruni. It dates from the first to sixth centuries AD. Scholars agree it was a defensive fortress, part of the chain guarding the north-eastern frontier of ancient Khorezm.

The name is the most curious thing: the fortress of forty maidens. The forty maidens are a motif scattered across Central Asia: fortresses of the same name stand near Termez and near Merv in Turkmenistan, and comparable places occur in Azerbaijan, northern Afghanistan and northern Iran. Even the etymology of the word Kyrgyz — kyrk kyz — shows the same forty girls.

Who they were, the legends explain differently. Some tales say this is where the amazon warriors found refuge after long wanderings across the Ustyurt — the Karakalpak epic has a poem called Kyrk Kyz. The tradition of Queen Gulaim, who defended the fortress against foreigners with her forty companions, belongs here too. Other legends tell of forty exiled women who lived here as hermits. In the mythology of the region's Turkic peoples the forty girls are righteous women who turned to stone to escape their pursuers; in other myths the chiltukhtaron were revered as benign protective spirits.

Excavation showed the fortress divided into two parts on different plans, joined by a gate in the eastern wall; towers stood where the parts came together. It was built of mud brick with straw, only the arches using fired brick. There is almost no decoration: it amounts to the pattern of the brickwork around window and arch openings.

Zoroastrian burials were found here as well, made by the full rite of the fire worshippers: bones in khums, ceramic vessels shaped like a woman's head.

For a long time the fortress was also a notable point on the Silk Road.