Gonur Depe
archaeological site in Turkmenistan
Gonur Depe (Turkmen: Goňur depe) is an archaeological site, dated from 2400 to 1600 BCE, and located about 60 km north of Mary (ancient Merv), Turkmenistan consisting of a large early Bronze Age settlement. It is the "capital" or major settlement of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC).
Archaeology
The site was discovered by Greek-Russian archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi. There he took first pottery shards from surface in 1972, and excavated the site since 1974 to 2013. Sarianidi uncovered a palace, a fortified mud-brick enclosure, and temples with fire altars which he associated with the Zoroastrian religion.
Gonur Depe has a total area of about 55 hectares, and is divided by archaeologists in three main sectors: Gonur North, the Large Necropolis, and Gonur South. The northern part of the complex called Gonur North had a central citadel-like structure about 100 by 180 m (330 by 590 ft) in size.
Gonur North
The main fortified complex is the almost elliptical sector known as Gonur North, (ca. 330 × 460 m), from ca. 2400 to 1900 BCE, which includes the "Monumental Palace" and annexed buildings, ritual areas and many temples, as well as the "Royal Necropolis" and various water reservoirs.
“Gonur Depe” enters the record as archaeological site in Turkmenistan. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Gonur, Depe and archaeological can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3110595. VIAF identifies the subject as 241241892. Authority coordinates are 38.213, 62.038. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1600, 1972, 1974 and 2013.
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This entry incorporates text from “Gonur Depe” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.