On the territory of the Ellikkalinsky district, on the plain, which is closed by the Sultanuizdag mountains, there is one of the most outstanding architectural monuments of Khorezm. Toprak-kala settlement (1st – 4th century AD), discovered by archaeologist S.P. Tolstov in 1938. Toprak-kala was a large city and a dynastic capital, with a population of about 3 thousand people.
The Toprak-kala settlement (“Earthen Fortress”, “Dusty Fortress”) has the shape of a regular rectangle of 500×350 meters, with powerful walls up to 20 meters high, up to 12 meters thick and numerous square towers.
All structures in Toprak-kala were built of large mud bricks. The Khorezmians possessed unique building knowledge, thanks to which they were able to build extremely strong buildings out of ordinary clay, which we can still observe today, many centuries later.
As a result of archaeological excavations on the territory of the Toprak-kala settlement, vivid evidence of a highly developed culture and crafts were discovered: wool and silk fabrics, artfully crafted ceramics, coins, jewelry made of gold and skillfully processed glass, as well as amber, shells and even corals.
The Toprak-kala hillfort is one of the few fully excavated monuments of Khorezm on the territory of Uzbekistan. It is one of the oldest cultural sites throughout Central Asia and occupies a prominent place among UNESCO world cultural monuments.
