CHAPTER XII.—A RECONNAISSANCE OF THE KURGANS OF THE 
MERV OASIS. 
As one looks northward from the great citadel of Ghiaur Kala in the center 
of the ruins of ancient Merv, the monotonous expanse of the flat sunny plain is 
broken here and there in the shimmering distance by pale gray mounds, or kurgans, 
of large dimensions. For a space of fifty miles from north to south and of forty 
from east to west they form one of the most marked features of the otherwise 
level landscape. A brief reconnaissance among them indicates that the old cities 
of Merv were surrounded by a dense suburban and presumably agricultural popu- 
lation which clustered around the kurgans. Fruitful fields and teeming villages 
appear to have been supported by the Murg-ab river, not only in the districts now 
under cultivation, but also in regions at present waterless. The distribution of 
the kurgans suggests that their future study will not only throw much light upon 
the civilization of the ancient people of Transcaspia, but will be of especial service 
in elucidating the physical changes, climatic or otherwise, which are sometimes 
thought to have been the cause of the decay of the ancient empires of the arid 
regions of Asia. 
Outside the cities of the ancient Merv Oasis the relics of the former inhabitants 
are of two distinct types, characteristic of two quite different periods. The more 
recent ruins, which are fairly well preserved, are built almost entirely of sun-dried 
mud bricks, and consist of old houses and castles, rectangular forts with very thick 
walls, round towers to protect the fields and villages, and old canals guarded by 
mile after mile of walls flanked with square towers. The date at which they were 
built is in many cases historically known, and there is good reason for believing that 
they all belong to the latter half of the Mohammedan era. With these more recent 
ruins we are not now concerned, although a study of their extent and distribution 
would probably lead to significant results as to the water-supply of the Middle Ages. 
The older ruins are of a distinctly different type. Chief among them are 
numerous flat-topped kurgans, or tepes* as the Turkomans call them, which are 
so abundant that in eight days the writer was able to visit and examine 28, and 
might have made the number larger if it had not seemed advisable to visit those 
lying on the extreme outskirts of the oasis. The distribution of most of those 
investigated and of a few others is shown on the accompanying revised copy of the 
Russian 5-verst map (fig. 430), where it will be seen that they are most abundant 
in the region directly north of Bairam Ali and the various ruined cities of ancient 
Merv. In addition to the kurgans, there are a number of large rectangular forts, 
the thick and lofty mud walls of which have been reduced either to mere rows of 
hillocks, as at Kirk Tepe, or to rounded ridges, as at Yasi Tepe. Houses of the 

*Tepe (pronounced té’pa) means an isolated hill. 
