Archaeologists investigating the submerged Toru-Aygyr complex in Kyrgyzstan’s Lake Issyk-Kul reported finding a medieval Muslim cemetery, fired-brick buildings and other remains during fieldwork in 2025. The researchers interpret the site near the lake’s northwestern shore as a city or large settlement associated with the Silk Road.
The expedition was led by Maksim Menshikov of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Valerii Kolchenko of the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnology at Kyrgyzstan’s National Academy of Sciences. The autumn survey covered four areas at depths of 1–4 meters, roughly 3–13 feet.
The work followed investigations in 2023 and 2024 that had recorded brick buildings, possible kilns or ovens, ceramics and preserved occupation layers at the complex.
Buildings and trade
The team documented collapsed stone structures and wooden beams alongside the brick remains. Researchers identified a stone millstone as equipment for grinding grain. They interpreted an architectural element as evidence of a public building with exterior decoration, possibly a mosque, bathhouse or madrassa. The building’s function has not been established.
Kolchenko described Toru-Aygyr as a city or large trading settlement on an important section of the Silk Road. Its precise commercial role remains a research question.
A cemetery exposed by erosion
The expedition reported burials across an area measuring about 300 by 200 meters, which it interpreted as a Muslim cemetery dating to the 13th and 14th centuries. Researchers described bodies positioned with their heads to the north and faces turned toward the qibla, the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca.
Lake erosion had exposed skeletons, and the team recovered the remains of two people described as a man and a woman for anthropological study. Three other burials found farther south may belong to an earlier cemetery, the researchers said. Their date and relationship to the settlement remain unresolved.
Dating the settlement’s submergence
Kolchenko attributed the settlement’s submergence to an earthquake in the early 15th century and said the team’s assessment was that residents had already left. The expedition’s account of its 2024 work had left open whether abandonment preceded the disaster.
Samples were sent for tree-ring analysis and accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dating. The available expedition accounts do not include completed results establishing the sequence of construction, abandonment and submergence or connecting the site to a specific earthquake.
Issyk-Kul is a closed-basin lake with no river outlet, in a seismically active region. Earlier surveys described both erosion of submerged deposits and areas where organic material remained well preserved.
Researchers also drilled underwater in the western part of the complex to collect samples from mudbrick walls and buried soils. Divers, underwater drones and photographic recording were used to document structures and build models for further study.
