Excavation Area
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A previously unknown Asian civilization used writing 4,000
years ago, hundreds of years before Chinese or Sumerian
writing was developed.
An archeological excavation near Ashgabat, the capital of
Turkmenistan, revealed an inscription on a piece of stone
that seems to have been used as a stamp or seal. This
discovery suggests that Central Asia had a civilization
comparable to that of Mesopotamia and ancient Iran as far
back as the Bronze Age.
Archeologists have uncovered ?monumental structures,?
including mud brick apartment complexes. The ancient society
seems to have herded goats, grown crops and made bronze
tools and ceramics about 300 years after the pyramids of
Egypt were built. It is not known what they called themselves.
2,000 years later, the region became the heart of the Silk
Road from China to the West and the civilization must have
integrated into the surrounding societies. The area has been
studied by Russian archeologists, but was closed to Western
researchers until recently.
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