The Russian capital hosted an international scientific conference entitled “Margiana at the Crossroads of Civilizations: Intercultural Interaction in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East – Antiquity and the Present Day”, which was held at the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). The forum was dedicated to the 35th anniversary of Turkmenistan’s independence.
The event was organized with the support of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the RAS, the Institute of Linguistics of the RAS, the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the RAS, the Russian–Turkmen Margiana Archaeological Expedition, the Ministry of Culture of Turkmenistan and the Embassy of Turkmenistan in the Russian Federation.
The record of joint research into Turkmen history conducted by Russian and Turkmen scholars is both diverse and extensive. Many decades of their dedicated fieldwork and scholarly commitment have demonstrated that the contemporary culture of Turkmenistan has roots reaching deep into antiquity.
Already during the years of independence, two joint Turkmen–Russian archaeological expeditions operated successfully in the country. They were established by the National Administration of Turkmenistan for the Protection, Study, and Restoration of Historical and Cultural Monuments in partnership with two institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences: the N.N. Miklouho Maclay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology in Moscow and the Institute for the History of Material Culture in St. Petersburg.
One of these expeditions was headed by Academician Vadim Masson (1929–2010), an outstanding theorist and practitioner who became the first archaeologist to be awarded the Magtymguly International Prize. The other expedition was led for many years by the renowned archaeologist, Viktor Sarianidi (1929–2013), an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of Turkmenistan, a recipient of the Magtymguly International Prize, and Doctor of Historical Sciences. At the center of attention of the Margiana Archaeological Expedition (MAE) that he founded was Ancient Margiana, or Margush – a still mysterious land that existed some four thousand years ago in the oases of the ancient delta of the Murghab River, long since absorbed by the sands of the Karakum Desert.
The settlement of Gonur depe, the capital center of Bronze Age Margiana (late 3rd to mid 2nd millennium BCE) has been the principal focus of excavations over recent decades. A monumental palace temple complex unprecedented for its time has been fully excavated together with adjacent residential structures, an extensive necropolis, and a group of elite burials. It is from this site that the majority of the remarkable and diverse finds originate – discoveries that have dramatically enriched the collections of three major repositories: the State Museum of Turkmenistan, the Museum of Fine Arts in Ashgabat, and the Mary Regional Museum. Based on the results of these discoveries, six volumes of MAE proceedings have been published, and several academic dissertations have been defended.
On the Russian side, specialists from the Ufa Scientific Center of the RAS, the M. Akmulla Bashkir State Pedagogical University, the Bashkir State Agrarian University, the Altai State University, the Kemerovo State University, as well as the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (the Kunstkamera) also took an active part in the excavations at Gonur depe.
The thematic scope of the current scholarly forum encompassed a wide range of issues related to intercultural interaction in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East, with particular emphasis on the archaeological and historical cultural heritage of Margiana (the ancient land of Margush). Held in a hybrid format, the conference brought together members of the academic community – researchers, experts, staff of research institutes, and university lecturers – from Turkmenistan, the Russian Federation, Armenia, Belgium, Germany, Italy and France.
Among the guests were leading scholars, representatives of diplomatic missions accredited in the Russian Federation, staff of the Embassy of Turkmenistan in Russia, students from Turkmenistan studying at the Russian higher education establishments, as well as representatives of the mass media.
A delegation from Turkmenistan arrived in Moscow to participate in the conference. It comprised representatives of the National Administration for the Protection, Study, and Restoration of Historical and Cultural Monuments of Turkmenistan, the Department of Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture of Turkmenistan and the State Historical and Cultural Reserve “Ancient Merv.”
The opening of the conference was preceded by an exhibition of books and photographs reflecting the rich historical and cultural heritage of Turkmenistan, as well as the colour and diversity of the Turkmen people’s original traditions. The two day program provided for thematic discussions devoted to one of the most remarkable – and still not fully revealed – mysteries of Eastern civilizations: the land of Margiana, famed for its unique monuments and sensational archaeological discoveries. The sustained productivity of scholarly cooperation between historians of the two countries has become a vivid testament to the enduring academic interest in the enigmas of Turkmenistan’s distant past.