Por-Bazhyn is Russia’s most mysterious archaeological site, located in the center of a remote lake (Tere-Khol) in southern Siberia. The Por-Bazhyn rectangular area is 162 meters, and the outer walls are 40 feet high, enclosing an area of seven acres crisscrossed with the labyrinthine remains of over 30 buildings. It is believed that Por-Bazhyn was built by the Uighurs, a Turkic group that once ruled an empire that spanned from Mongolia to southern Siberia.
Uighurs might have built the building for defense purposes. Archaeologists are trying to find out the purpose of building a complex and why it was abandoned. However, there is some evidence of a great fire at Por-Bazhyn, or maybe another reason the Uighurs eventually left. The Po-Bazhyn was first explored in 1891 by a Russian archeologist who noticed similarities in layout to Karac Balgasum, (the former capital of the Uighur Empire). Therefore, dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating point out that the “fortress” was built between AD 770 and 790.
Por-Bazhyn location is eight kilometers west of the village of Kungurtuk in the southwest of the Republic of Tuva, close to the Russian border with Mongolia. The unique layout of Por-Bazhyn is more intricate as compared to other Uighur fortresses of that period. Vladimir Putin, president of the Russian Federation, even impressed him greatly with both the scale of the excavations and the site itself, and these ruins suggest it would have been nearly impregnable.
Moreover, during excavation, some wood samples were extracted to support the compacted clay fabrics of the wall, an old Chinese building technique. This shows that Chinese architects and builders were directly involved in the construction of this fortress. Moreover, in 2007, large-scale fieldwork was undertaken by the Russian Academy of Sciences, the State Oriental Museum, and Moscow State University. And they found clay tablets of human feet, faded colored drawings on the plaster of the walls, giant gates, and fragments of burnt wood, but nothing substantial that could be responsible for a conclusive answer as to why the structure was built.
The future of Por-Bazhyn’s is doubtful, as the structure sits on a bed of permafrost, slowly melting and reaching a warmer temperature, causing the water level to rise. The above reason may cause the structure to collapse into the lake, possibly in the next 70 years or so. Moreover, the structure has also been badly damaged due to major earthquakes that happened in the past century.
The first excavations weren’t carried out until almost 60 years later by another Russian archeologist who saw construction characteristics typical of Chinese architecture from the T’ang Dynasty. Based on anecdotal evidence in the so-called Selenginsk inscription, the lead archeologist of the excavation, S.I. Vainshtein, offered that Por-Bazhyn was a defense fortress built by the second Uighur ruler, Boyan-Chur, in 750 CE. Vainshtein’s hypothesis soon became the most widely accepted and disseminated by other investigators, even though it was based solely on speculation.
In 2007, the large-scale fieldwork was undertaken by the Russian Academy of Sciences, the State Oriental Museum, and Moscow State University. Archaeologists found clay tablets of human feet, faded colored drawings on the plaster of the walls, giant gates, and fragments of burnt wood, but nothing substantial that could provide a definitive answer as to why the structure was built. Source: Archive Archaeology
Por-Bazhyn was a defense fortress built by the second Uighur ruler, Boyan-Chur, in 750 CE.
