Karakum, the civilization of oases

This city of sand lost in the Karakum desert in Turkmenistan is all that's left of an ancient culture dating back four millennia. A civilization that even today remains a mystery to us. A team of archaeologists has started digging into the necropolis, a vast ornate graveyard alongside the city. It's an astonishing and unusually developed world that's slowly emerging from the sand. How did they live 4,000 years ago in the center of a desert? What were their customs and their beliefs? The archaeologists' painstaking work is slowly providing the answers. Answers that challenge much of what we thought we knew about the dawn of civilization. Turkmenistan is located in the heart of Central Asia between Afghanistan and the Caspian Sea. Two-thirds of the country is swallowed up by a vast inhospitable sea of sand, the Karakum desert. Victor Ivanovich Saryanidi is a Russian archaeologist and an expert on Central Asia. He has dedicated 25 years of his life to excavating this city, which is called Gonodepi. But the oft-destroyed and pillaged city has given up few of its secrets, revealing little about the society that once lived here. 25 years ago, no one could have imagined that there was a country here, that there were people here, that there was life here, that there was civilization here. There was a country here that was almost nothing compared to the leading centers of the world at the time. Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China. It wasn't until around the fall of the Iron Curtain in the 1990s that other archaeologists were able to examine Victor Ivanovich Saryanidi's amazing discovery. Now, their work consists of providing the scientific data to prove the existence of this long-gone civilization. Giancarlo Ligabue and the archaeologist Gabriele Rossi Osmida were among the first to believe that this civilization had existed. Through the Ligabue Research Center in Venice, they have already organized many expeditions to the site and gathered together much information on the topic. This work, for example, lists the strange objects found in second-hand shops and in Central Asian markets. For archaeologists, these items, stolen, of course, clearly show that it disappeared and ancient world once flourished. But taken out of that context, they don't tell us anything about the culture that made them. An analysis of these satellite images today lets us determine the boundaries of the necropolis and shows which areas have not yet been explored. Areas that may conceal important clues about this forgotten culture. This new information justifies the expense of a new expedition to the site. Some 800 years after Marco Polo, explorers are still setting out from Venice to discover the mysteries of the Orient. Graves spread across 10 hectares, the biggest funeral site in all of Central Asia. A massive cemetery dug 4,000 years ago that, for lack of any writing, remains the only source of information on this location. Located about a kilometer from totally cloaked under the sands of the desert, the necropolis is in Venice. Until now, scientists have proceeded only by careful probing of the ground. A Turkoman archaeologist is completing a topographic survey of the graves already dug up over the past few years. His data, cross-referenced with the new information Gabriel is carrying, will permit the necropolis to be explored in a more systematic and effective way from now on. Picture Ivanovich turns up at the camp where Gabriel arrived the same morning. The two archaeologists know each other well. For the past 10 years, they've met in the middle of this desert on their respective digs. But with the financing for the archaeological work coming to an end, this will probably be their last visit to the site. Their last chance to prove that a civilization grew and developed here 2,000 years before Christ. Work starts at dawn on the second day. The satellite pictures have given the archaeologists an understanding of how the necropolis is laid out. And they overlay that with survey data of the graves carried out by Bverdi. The map now clearly shows the areas that thus far have escaped their endeavors. One area in particular draws their attention. In the middle of the necropolis is a stretch where the tombs are bigger and more ornate than the others. It's here that the most important citizens might have been buried. Bverdi and Gabriel decide to focus their efforts on that part of the necropolis. Around 50 laborers have been hired and trained to take part in the excavation. All of them are locals and are well used to the rigors of living in the desert. Work begins in the morning while the heat is still bearable. In a few short hours, the thermometer will be touching 50 degrees Celsius. All activity will then have to be suspended until the relative coolness of the evening. The first stage is to clean off the desert sand so as to be able to remove the earth and grit accumulated over 40 centuries. The aim is to bring out the oldest layer, that in which tombs were dug. The ground still betrays the nearest outlines. This man is employed to spot the graves. His eyes, trained to make out his difference in color on the ground, suddenly see the outline of digging dating back 4,000 years. But he also sees something else. Evidence of a second hole. A sign that they are not the first to discover me. Sometime in the past, grave robbers pillaged the tomb, opening it up where the dead person's head was, to the north, where offerings were traditionally left. Despite the disappointment, Viktor Ivanovich still orders the grave to be excavated. The structure and the skeleton inside will provide valuable information. And Viktor Ivanovich also knows that pillagers in their haste occasionally overlook some objects. On this first day of excavation, fortune smiles on the archaeologists. Either forgotten or tossed aside by the thieves, a small clay statue is found in the grave and is brought out into the sun after four millennia of gloom. This oddly crafted piece is evidence that unique and original artwork was created in this place. But it has not revealed its secret meaning yet. Who is it? What does it say about the beliefs of this people? A well-deserved wash after a first day of hard work. This canal, an unexpected find in a desert, cuts across the necropolis. It is Ferrier River and is what is left of an ambitious but long-abandoned project to create an inland sea. But while the work is greeted with enthusiasm, it spells a menace for the necropolis. Whatever is preserved by the arid dryness of the desert is slowly being destroyed by the humidity that seeps in from the canal. It is a long but inevitable process and one that threatens the whole site and puts in peril all that is left of this civilization. Life returns to Karakum. Today, as was probably the case 4,000 years ago, it comes out in the cool of the evening. Sandstorms are frequent in this desert. Every three days, the work site disappears under a twisting cloud of choking, blinding dust. But there is no way the excavation will be interrupted. For Gabriel, it's a race against time. The contents of the recently opened tomb will badly weather the wind and sand. A comb of ivory stuck to a bronze mirror. It is these modest but touching accessories taken to the grave that the archaeologist is going to try and recover. Taking little notice of the incessantly flailing sand, Gabriel puts all his attention into his delicate work. The items are extremely fragile and even more valuable for the archaeologist is the fact that they are well preserved. Each recovered item is a unique and irreplaceable clue about an unknown civilization. This comb and mirror will maybe help archaeologists understand how the inhabitants of Karakum lived 4,000 years ago. The comb, exquisitely carved out of ivory, and its bronze mirror are customary beauties. But for an archaeologist, the fact that they were found together in a grave gives them a much deeper meaning than their apparently superficial purpose. A ritualized priority for care and beauty that confirms what the team has found since the beginning of these excavations. That in virtually all the graves of both men and women, there are objects that have to do with appearance. Like this snaking wrist palette, designed for the mixing of colors. Or this applicator for eye shadow. Perfectly functional implements where several traces of makeup have been found, showing that they were used daily. It seems that in their lives, as well as in death, the Karakum people held beauty and the care of their bodies in the highest esteem. This idea is reinforced by these figurines, which are topped by sophisticated hairstyles and which have distinctly different faces, probably also adorned with makeup. The archaeologists see this interest in the body as an indication that physical appearance acted as a way of declaring one's place in society. Evidence, in fact, of a very hierarchical and structured society. News of a new find races around the site. This morning, after a week of digging 50 graves, the workers have at long last found one tomb spared by the thieves. Lying on her side, with her head to the north and face turned to the setting sun. This is the position in which all the bodies in the necropolis were laid out. This is a woman wearing a bronze tiara. Athenware bracelets that show she was of high social rank. Her tomb contains an abundance of artifacts. Pottery so fine and fragile that its use could only have been to decorate her resting place. Bronze earrings, beads of gold and precious gems. For Gabriele, this could all be a sign she was a priestess prepared for her journey to her gods. It's a key discovery because so far almost nothing is known about the beliefs of this population and what they worshipped. A stone statue with the entire procession. Here is the fineness, incredible, with the typical dress made of goat skin. The other arm is one of the mothers, one of the deities. Finally we see for the first time the position in which she was placed in the tomb. Recognizable from her full body, the goddess mother was believed to give life to humans but also to receive them in death, as is shown here by its place in the tomb near the woman's head. At the same time, this discovery reveals the places of other figurines in the tomb, all of them feminine, they represent the different faces of the same divinity. Some with two holes above the eyes were probably hung in homes to protect the people within. Many sacred effigies put the goddess mother at the centre of their religion and point to a veneration of the woman's image in their culture. Gabriele immediately returns to excavating this precious grave. Something intrigues him about the objects he has found. It suggests that we are in front of a grave of an individual who comes from the Indian environment. These bracelets, for example, which are in faience, are typical of Arabian cultures. Harappa, one of the cities of the ancient urban civilization of the Indus Valley that flourished between what is now India and Pakistan, more than a thousand kilometres away. How did these bracelets reach here? Was the woman in the tomb part of that far-off civilization? To find out, Gabriele decides to have the skull examined by Oraz Babakov, an anthropologist. To allow close examination, the head has to be separated from the rest of the body and delicately loosened from the vertebra with a little water. The shape of the skull will permit the anthropologist to work out the ethnic group of the person and that's where she probably came from. Here, the verdict is clear. For Oraz Babakov, this woman has none of the characteristics typical of the Indus but rather seems to belong to the same people as the majority of others found in the necropolis. The Harappan bracelets are therefore most likely the result of trade proficiently established so that the Indus and Karakum traditions are entwined in the tomb. That then raises the question, was this desert culture part of a vast trading route in the ancient world? After three weeks of digging, the tally is disheartening. More than 90% of the tombs have been pillaged. Wholesale robbery that started centuries ago and left behind only the smallest objects, those that were the least precious. But today, to Viktor Ivanovich, these same spurned artifacts have taken on a priceless scientific value. These are seals. They represent the only real images we have of this forgotten world. The last of them, discovered the same day, allow archaeologists to see the links between the city and the desert and the other civilizations of the time. When I see a seal like this, made of faience, it's a typical seal that archaeologists find in the Indus Valley when they dig up the Harappan monuments. The same. It shows me that there was a cultural connection between this people and that people. When I... In another grave of an aristocrat, we found this seal. This is a typical Syrian seal. The winged goddess who sits on a panther. Well, where is Syria and where are you and I sitting? After all, these are two parts of the Middle East. There is evidence again of regular contact between this desert city and a world where the first major urban civilizations in history sprang forth. Assyria, part of ancient Mesopotamia, had developed writing more than a thousand years earlier. Egypt, the far reaches of the ancient empire, oversaw the construction of the first great pyramids. South Asia, where the Indus Valley civilization flourished, with huge cities such as Harappa and Moenjodaro. All these civilizations were naturally connected by sea and land trade. Now, we are finding one of the routes passed through Karakum. It was a path through the oases. 2,000 years later, we call this the Silk Road. It wound past large cities like this one. Built probably on the site of caravan stoppers, these communities prospered because of trade. They became home to a civilization rooted in the desert, but entirely turned towards the enormous circuit of exchange that took place. Necropolis, some tombier and more sophisticated than the others, bear witness to the wealth of this civilization. Robbed of their no doubt impressive contents, they now stand as hollow husks. With the help of an architect, Adam Murad, Gabriel tries to reconstruct how it must have looked. After two days of trial and error, it's to take shape. And reveals a surprising concept of the afterlife. It's like a small house. A partition wall has been created that divides the night zone from the day zone. Here you can see two windows and the focal area, the area where we found the remains of the deceased. Well, what does this tell us? It tells us that in this culture, there was a belief that in the afterlife, life would continue depending on what the deceased had inherited. And so a house was rebuilt there for the afterlife, for death, equal to what he had possessed in life. Built for eternity, this little residence probably contained valuable objects that belonged to the person buried here. The discovery of such a building will permit the archaeologists to make a comparison between the level of skill practiced by Guna Debi's artisans and those of other civilizations from the same period. It is likely that the evidence needed to finally prove the size and scale of this civilization in the oases, cradled in the ancient world, lies here. Unfortunately, the excavations have all but finished. Turned up nothing but mausoleums entirely gutted by thieves. For Gabriele, though, these vast tombs yielded their secret. This morning, he is working on the biggest tomb in all the necropolis. It most probably belonged to a chief. It holds little more than a few bones eaten away by the water seeping in from the canal. And yet, something here puzzles the archaeologist. The archaeologist is convinced. The gifts are still here, someplace hidden in the tomb. Determined, he views his excavation. At the base of a wall, he notices something. Clay and earth, as if a deep cavity has been covered up. Underneath is untouched sand. After 10 years of working here, this was an undreamed of discovery for the archaeologists. Thanks to Gabriele's instincts, they will, for the first time, be able to study the intact treasure of a dignitary buried 4,000 years ago. The vase, extracted with extreme care, is in perfect condition. Its long spout allowed the server to pour the water precisely, a liquid of great value in a desert. This sort of twinned goblet in bronze has never been seen before. What surprises the archaeologists much more than the gold beads is the amazing skill of the craftsmen, who created these objects for millennia in our past. The artistic and decorative nature of these objects goes well beyond their utility. They are the product of a society that, after a long evolution, discarded needless flourishes to retain only the major strokes and lines. Just enough so that a piece of coral gives birth to a sleeping swan, or a silver sheep at the end of a hairpin. The news of the discovery sweeps across the desert faster than a sandstorm. A family of nomads suddenly finds the distant past of Karakum of overwhelming interest. However, as well as its treasures, the desert is also home to animals as dangerous as they are silent. A small sand snake has found shelter from the heat in Gabriel's tool kit. Its bite is deadly. The venom takes mere minutes to work. Gabriel takes another two full days to finish recovering the rest of the treasure. The whole lot is stuck together. And as one or two pieces are removed, others are found hidden underneath. At last, there is nothing left but this little box decorated with a mosaic. Its wood is completely decomposed. Methodically, the archaeologist prepares the earth around the shards of color so as to reconstitute the design. We can find something like this in ancient Greece, for example. But in this context, it was unexpected that we would find a pin with such a refined mouflon head, or a lamb of this size, which expresses a capacity and an artistic taste by this people, which is incredible. These objects tell us much about a culture that, by its creativity and its delicate artwork, was comparable to the major civilizations of the period. But they also tell us that these people lived in a surprisingly peaceful world. Out of all the hundreds of tombs excavated, none held any real weapons. The only conclusion is that this people was more consumed with the art of living than the art of war. A people who, in all likelihood, probably felt naturally protected by the expanse of the desert itself. An arid and hostile land, which gives pause to any thought of traveling through it. Oraz Babakov's examination of the recovered skeletons reveals that here, man found surprising ways to adapt to his environment. This is a medium-sized plant, 1.55 meters in diameter. And how long did they live? This is about 37 years old. This is quite a lot for the Bronze Age. I don't know, maybe there was some kind of food here. But what were the food resources of this people? What were they able to grow in a desert? The answer is in Italy, in the Archaeobotanic Laboratory of Como, where study is underway on the carbonized plant samples taken from the dig. The experts have now been able to identify the nature of these samples. These traces of wheat and barley are not visible except when the tufts are beaten to extract beads. Well, then we have practically ... It was worked and there was actually cultivation. There are then other seeds of fruits, such as ... For example, the vine of the vine, there is a small fragment of seeds of a ... of a shell, of something that can be assimilated to a suzina, a pesca, something like that. And then legumes, so legumes were also part of the diet and food in Gono or Depe. There is the desert environment, but there is also the presence of water, certainly. We have found species such as the poplar, which is a species exquisitely linked to the watercourses, but also the tamarix, tamarix, are quite linked to this type of environment, and then clearly all the cultivated plants, which still need a system of irrigation. Four thousand years ago, there was a river here that allowed Karakum's residents to tame the desert. Over several dozen hectares around the site, there were crop plantations and fruit orchards. Canals irrigated the farmland and supplied water to some 15 villages, where, according to archaeologists, some 5,000 people lived, most of the population. The city centre, protected by a boundary wall, was built from sun-baked clay bricks. It had a craftsman's area, storage for merchandise, and public spaces where markets were held. In the middle was a palace, where the elite probably lived and exercised a centralised rule about which we still know nothing. Today, the city has slipped back into silence, and it has almost no other visitors than its last king, Victor Ivanov. Why did the city disappear? How did its society vanish? For the archaeologists, the answer is simple, and always the same. The archaeologists' work is not over, but the expedition has been successful in finding high-quality artefacts whose social and symbolic value prove that they resulted from a true civilisation. There was a civilisation of the oasis in the 4th and 2nd millennium BC. A civilisation of the oasis that ensured social, but above all cultural and political contacts, exchanges of ideas between the East and the West, the South and the North. Now, this civilisation was constituted by a group of towns, distributed along the entire face of the desert. Around here, there will be another group of towns similar to Golur-Tepe, and once we have got to know all this together, it will be a bit like rediscovering a kind of ancient Greece, of the polis of antiquity. It is a classical culture of the Hebrew era. The excavations conducted at Golur-Tepe have filled in some of the blanks about the vast political and cultural system that was formed by the cities in the desert. But the civilisation in the oasis still remains, for the most part, sunk beneath the sand. Many, many more digs will be needed before it yields up all its secrets. Today, we are barely beginning to discover its history.