Overview
- A Russian Academy of Sciences team surveyed four shallow zones at the Toru‑Aygyr site on Issyk‑Kul’s northwest shore and documented structural remains and artifacts.
- Finds include fired‑brick and mudbrick buildings, a millstone from a grain mill, collapsed stone features, wooden beams, and large ceramic vessels.
- Researchers recorded a Muslim necropolis with burials oriented toward the qibla, consistent with medieval Islamic rites reported for the region.
- Expedition leader Valery Kolchenko described the settlement as a city or major trading hub on the Silk Road and proposed an early 15th‑century earthquake as the likely calamity, saying residents may have left beforehand.
- Samples have been sent for laboratory analysis, including accelerator mass spectrometry dating, and the Russian Geographical Society, which funded the work, says the evidence indicates an ancient city once stood there.