Website on Oglanqala region now functions in new version

Website “www.oglanqala.net”, generated on July 03, 2011, has started operating in new version.

Since 2006, Lauren Ristvet (University of Pennsylvania), Dr. Veli Bakhshaliyev (Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, Nakhchivan) and Dr. Safar Ashurov (Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences, Baku), along with their colleagues and students have investigated the long term history of Oglanqala region and jointly prepared the Nakhchivan Archaeological Project, the first ever joint American-Azerbaijani program of surveys and excavations.
The new version will also include results of investigations being conducted in 2011 and 2012 years accordingly.

In 2008, the Nakhch?van Archaeological Project began the first season of intensive survey and excavation at the site of Oglanqala, Azerbaijan, in order to investigate economic and political imperialism and its effects on local communities in Nakhchivan during the Iron Age (ca. 500-330 BC). Oglanqala probably served as the center of a local polity in the early and middle Iron Age and later became incorporated into the northern frontiers of the Achaemenid Empire. The area offers, therefore, an extraordinary opportunity to investigate the Achaemenid Empire and its imperial and economic strategies.

Oglanqala is located near the modern city of Sharur in the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, Azerbaijan.

Oglanqala is ca. 1200BC-1900 CE. The associated survey is from ca. 5000 BCE to the present.
Nakhch?van is one of the first projects in the least explored area of the Near East.

The Nakhch?van Archaeological Project, a joint American-Azerbaijani program of surveys and excavations, studies the north-eastern frontier of Greater Mesopotamia. Ongoing surveys reveal how the interaction between nomads, local centers and external empires created a unique political landscape in the Caucasus. Current excavations focus on unearthing the ancient imperial palace, where some of the first evidence of writing in Azerbaijan was found and exploring a neighborhood in order to understand how imperial policies affected everyday life.


/AzerTAc/