The Achaemenid Period in the Samarkand Area (Sogdiana): Trial Trenches At Koj Tepa, 2009 Campaign

Abstract

The archaeological project in the Samarkand region aimed at detecting and investigating an Achaemenid horizon in Sogdiana after the first short campaign of May-June 2008 continued in summer 2009 through more extensive trial-trenches at Koj tepa. This tepa is a rather important settlement, constituted by a citadel encircled by walls, inside strongly destroyed, cut through by a modern activity of bulldozers, which, according to the topographic results achieved by the IAM of the Bologna University, presented partial remains of the city walls; though not still clearly identified; this wall was most probably encircling a truncated-cone-sh high citadel, according to a settlement pattern of a constructive urban system typical for sites in ancient Samarkand and Ustrushana areas. A new general map of the site is going to be realized by a laser-scanner survey promoted by the Università degli Studi di Napoli, L’Orientale. The joint Uzbek/Italian team acts in a work inserted within the frame of an official agreement between IAASU and UNO, signed in October 2008 in Samarkand and April 2009 in Naples. The second season of excavation at Koj Tepe in 2009 has been aimed at investigating the area around section no 1 and 2, in the presumed area of the eastern city-wall of the site in order to achieve a typological and possibly chronological stratigraphic differentiation; in the meantime two main objectives were followed: to find some architectural evidence of the wall (length, width, height) and to collect as much dating material culture as possible.