FROM THE HISTORY OF THE STUDY OF USTRUSHANA'S ARCHAEOLOGY

Аннотация

Мазкур мақолада муаллифнинг ўлкамиздаги тарихий вилоятларидан бири саналувчи Уструшона археологиясининг ўрганилиши хусусидаги фикр-мулоҳазалари келтирилган. Калит сўзлар: Туркистон, Жиззах, П.И.Лерх, Н.С.Ликошин, А.А.Семёнов, Я.Ғуломов, Уструшона,Бунжикат,Шаҳристон,экспедиция. Independence has given the Uzbek people the opportunity to learn about their true history and to study it independently. We have gained the ability to restore historical truth, explore our national cultural heritage, and evaluate it objectively. Broad opportunities have been opened for archaeological and ethnographic research in our country. As a result, we witness that the peoples who lived between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers have made an invaluable contribution to the material and spiritual culture of humanity since ancient times. One of the historical regions withinthe territory of ourhomeland is theUstrushana region. In written sources, the territory of Ustrushana and its name have been mentioned under various designations. In historical records, the region was initially referred to as the “Sogdian lands beyond the Saks,” and later it became an independent administrative territory known as “Ustrushana.” Ustrushana bordered the Dasht-i Qipchaq (Kipchak Steppe) to the north, Sogdiana to the west, Tashkent and Fergana to the east, and the Turkestan Mountains to the south.Its capital, thecity ofBunjikat, served as theresidenceof theruler [1:91]. Indeed, the study of Ustrushana's history began in the 1860s, following the conquest of Turkestan by Tsarist Russia. This work was initiated by Russian intellectuals — Orientalists, archaeologists, and historians — who were considered enlightened scholars of their time. It is worth noting that in the early stages of exploring the region's material cultural monuments, Russianmilitary topographers andofficers mainlyfocused oncollecting antiqueartifacts. The formal study of cultural monuments in the territory of Ustrushana began in 1867. The well- known Orientalist P.I. Lerch organized a scientific expedition to Turkestan as part of a special mission of the Imperial Russian Academy [2:25]. Under the leadership of this Orientalist, the scientific group managed to copy and interpret two historical inscriptions written in Arabic script found on the Ilon-Otti rocks near Jizzakh. As a result, the academic world became acquainted with accounts of two major events: the victorious military campaign of Mirzo Ulughbek, a descendant of Timur, against the lands of the Jeti (Moghulistan) in 1425, and the triumphs of Bukhara Khan Abdullah Khan I over Tashkent, Fergana, and theKazakh sultans, as described in historical chronicles [3:71–72]. In the 1870s, Colonel A. Kushakevich, head of the Khujand uyezd, visited Shahristan — one of the region's historical and cultural centers. During his visit, he collected local legends and information related to the past of Shahristan, particularly about a structure built of preserved baked bricks. As early as 1890, the renowned Orientalist and archaeologist N.S. Likoshin was among the first to provide a detailed description of the Chilkhujra fortress. By 1893, the first archaeological excavations were carried out in Shahristan. During these excavations, the head 283 INTERNATIONAL MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL FOR RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT SJIF2019:5.2222020:5.5522021:5.6372022:5.4792023:6.5632024:7,805 eISSN:2394-6334 https://www.ijmrd.in/index.php/imjrd Volume12,issue08(2025) of the Ura-Tepa district unit, Staff Captain Stepanov, played a particularly active role. Information about these activities was presented at a meeting of the Turkestan Circle of AmateurArchaeologists held onOctober 16,1896. The renowned expert on the history of Turkic peoples, V.V. Bartold, succeeded in recording legends and oral narratives related to the history of Shahristan and Chilkhujra directly from the local population. As one of the first scholars, the famous Orientalist attempted to prove that Bunjikat, the capital of Ustrushana, was located on the site of the ruins in Shahristan [4:331]. Later, thanks to the efforts of P.S. Skvarsky, the head of the Ura-Tepa district unit, numerous ancient material-cultural artifacts related to the past of Shahristan were collected, along with samples of ruins ofseveral ancient settlements [5:41–45].One of themost prominent experts on the antiquity of Ustrushana was, without doubt, I.A. Castagné. As one of the first researchers, he studied the medieval ruins of Shahristan (Qal’ai-Qahqaha), compiled their description, and managed to document valuable information about the city’s defensive walls and water supply system. Efforts to identify and document historical monuments related to the ancient history of Ustrushana were revived in the 1920s–1930s. The Russian scholar A.A. Semyonov wrote his archaeological commentary on the Shahristan monuments and succeeded in creating a comprehensive overview of the architectural heritage of Ura-Tepa. It was this archaeolog