Tepakurgan

History

Tepakurgan is an archaeological site in central Kokand and a branch of the Kokand State Museum-Reserve. Excavations found an early medieval platform that once carried a monumental castle with semicircular towers, while the lowest layers produced wheel-made pottery with red slip dating from the 2nd–1st centuries BC. Together with the Muyi Muborak mound, Tepakurgan shows that Kokand's story began long before it became a khans' capital; the heritage register dates the monument to the 17th century. Archaeologists believe part of today's city was under irrigated farming by the 7th century BC at the latest, and that a town arose here no later than the second half of the 2nd century BC as the centre of the Sokh oasis.