THE MYSTERIOUS MARGUSH COUNTRY CONTINUES TO ATTRACT SCIENTISTS' ATTENTION -- "Ancient Margiana – a new centre of world civilization" – this is the title of an international conference which will be held in Ashgabat and Mary. Many well-known scientists and archeologists from Greece, France, Italy, Finland, USA, Great Britain, Russia and Holland will take part in this forum.
The participants of the conference will have the opportunity to work in respective sections of the conference directly at the excavation site and to familiarize themselves with valuable archeological findings made on the territory of ancient Margiana.
The discoveries made by Turkmen archeologists and their foreign colleagues at Old Merv site enabled the scientists to compile a precise map of the region where in the old days there existed highly developed state whose activities contributed to the development of world civilization. It became possible also to gain a clear idea about various aspects of life in this cultural centre: from ancient technologies to economics, from day-to-day activities of the local people to their agricultural traditions. Today we have got the clues to ancient fortification practices, learnt much about the palace and temple constructions of Gonurtepe, found the traces of ancient foundry practices including the usage of crucible, we can state with certainty that from time immemorial local people have cultivated cotton, flax and other crops as well as have been engaged in carpet making. Hundreds of copper, bronze, silver and gold coins which were found here during the excavation works enabled scientists to carry out the periodisation of different rulers's reign as well as to revise the existing notions on chronology, culture and trade in Old Merv.
This material evidences testify to the fact that the ancestors of modern Turkmen people had a developed written language, and this land was one of the centres of world civilization alongside with Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and India.
