Larisa O. Smirnova

The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

E-mail: smirnova@hermitage.ru

Keywords: Panjmanor (Darvaz), Chor-minor (Bukhara), Char Minar (Hyderabad), dating, tomb mosque.

Studies on the fortified settlement of Kala-i Kukhna (Karron) in Darvaz (Southern Tajikistan) were launched in 2012. Its dating caused controversy, including among the participants of the excavation. The site as a whole is very complicated to deal with. It is obvious that its formation took a long time resulting in an assemblage of objects and structures for various purposes ranging from a nomadic mound to structures of the late Middle Ages. The author is of the opinion that all objects excavated in 2012–2014 belong to the period of the late 14th – the turn of the 16^th and 17^th centuries. This paper focuses on the substantiation of the dating of the structure tentatively referred to as “Panjmanor” (Five Towers). In the light of the analogies presented in the work it can be considered as a special kind of Muslim mosque and a tomb mosque. Based on the first construction period, the structure can be attributed to the Timurid period – the late 14th–15th century.

DOI: 10.31857/S086960630010959-3