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<< Text Pages >> Duzdag - Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry in Azerbaijan

Submitted by davidmorgan on Thursday, 01 September 2011  Page Views: 4565

Multi-periodSite Name: Duzdag
Country: Azerbaijan
NOTE: This site is 52.335 km away from the location you searched for.

Type: Ancient Mine, Quarry or other Industry
Nearest Town: Nakhchivan
Latitude: 39.250401N  Longitude: 45.389142E
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
no data Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
2
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Ancient Mine in Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. One of the oldest salt mines dating from the 5th millennium BCE.

Note: Oldest salt mine yet known located in Azerbaijan, see also Lower Paleolithic tools found recently during excavations at Ovchular Tepe, an associated settlement
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Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
 47.0km NW 324° Ovchular Tepe Ancient Village or Settlement
 55.7km NNW 343° Areni-1 Cave* Cave or Rock Shelter
 58.9km N 1° Tanahati* Early Christian Sculptured Stone
 62.5km ENE 61° Qaradaran Museum* Museum
 64.0km ENE 63° Sangyar-Qaraberd Stone Row / Alignment
 64.4km ENE 58° Karahoonj* Stone Circle
 74.7km NE 49° Ughtasar* Rock Art
 78.8km N 350° Selim Caravansarai* Ancient Trackway
 87.7km NNW 348° Bullhead Vishap Standing Stone (Menhir)
 96.1km N 6° Khrber Ancient Village or Settlement
 98.6km NW 315° Khor Virap* Early Christian Sculptured Stone
 99.2km NW 315° Artashat Ancient Village or Settlement
 100.7km N 5° Odzaberd Promontory Fort / Cliff Castle
 100.9km N 5° Inscription of Tsovinar Rock Art
 110.4km NNW 334° Geghard monastery* Ancient Cross
 111.2km NNW 330° Garni temple* Ancient Temple
 114.4km NNW 338° Geghard Petroglyphs Rock Art
 115.0km N 353° K'anaker* Stone Circle
 117.4km NNW 338° Geghard Petroglyphs 2 Rock Art
 120.0km NNW 329° Voghjaberd Caves Cave or Rock Shelter
 122.9km NW 324° Erebuni Ancient Village or Settlement
 127.4km NNW 331° Aramus Ancient Village or Settlement
 127.5km NW 323° Shengavit Ancient Village or Settlement
 128.4km NW 322° Karmir Blur Ancient Village or Settlement
 132.0km NW 326° Karmir Berd Rock Art
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Oldest Salt Mine Known to Date Located in Azerbaijan by davidmorgan on Wednesday, 31 August 2011
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Archeologists have recently provided proof that the Duzdagi salt deposits, situated in the Araxes Valley in Azerbaijan, were already being exploited from the second half of the 5th millennium BC. It is therefore the most ancient exploitation of rock salt attested to date. And, to the researchers' surprise, intensive salt production was carried out in this mine at least as early as 3500 BC.

This work, conducted in collaboration with the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences and published on 1st December 2010 in the journal TÜBA-AR, should help to elucidate how the first complex civilizations, which emerged between 4500 BC and 3500 BC in the Caucasus, were organized.

The economic and symbolic importance of salt in ancient and medieval times is well known. Recent discoveries have shown that salt most probably played a predominant role in protohistoric societies, in other words those that preceded the appearance of writing. How is salt obtained? The two most widely used techniques are based on the extraction of rock salt, in other words a sedimentary deposit containing a high concentration of edible salt (2), and the collection of sun-dried salt in salt marshes, for example. Knowledge of the techniques used in former times to exploit raw materials such as salt, obsidian (3) or copper enables archeologists to deduce essential information on the needs and the level of complexity of ancient societies. In the Caucasus, the first traces of intensive exploitation of rock salt appeared at the very moment when these protohistoric societies were undergoing profound economic and technological changes, particularly with regard to the development, for the first time, of copper metallurgy.

In order to understand these interactions, CNRS researcher Catherine Marro and her team have been exploring the Araxes basin (Turkey, Iran, Azerbaijan) for the last ten years or so. The archeologists have been focusing particularly on the Duzdagi (4) salt mine situated in Azerbaijan, more specifically beside the old medieval Silk Road linking Tabriz (in the north west of Iran) with Constantinople. Until now, the oldest traces of exploitation of this deposit, which is still in activity, went back to the 2nd millennium BC. This dating was based on the fortuitous discovery in the 1970s of an ancient collapsed gallery that contained the remains of four workers buried with their tools.

In 2008, a French-Azerbaijani team directed by Marro and her colleague Veli Baxsaliyev began a systematic exploration of the Duzdagi mine. The team then made an inventory of a large number of remnants (tools, ceramics, etc.), the oldest of which date back to 4500 BC. It is the first time that artifacts from this period have been discovered in such large numbers in a salt mine. The researchers have thus been able to demonstrate that exploitation of this salt mine has been going on for a very long time, extending back at least to the second half of the 5th millennium BC: Duzdagi is therefore the oldest exploitation of rock salt known to date (5).

Another remarkable fact is that the abundance of artifacts dating from the early Bronze Age suggests that the Duzdagi mine was intensively exploited from as early as the 4th millennium BC. Hundreds of stone picks and hammers have in fact been found near the entrances of collapsed tunnels. The frequent presence nearby of ceramic pottery fragments specific to the culture known as "Kuro-Araxes" has made it possible to date these archeological artifacts. Their spatial and chronological distribution was analyzed by a geographic information system, combining satellite photos (Spot 5), aerial photos taken from a kite and the plotting of artifacts by DGPS, a sort of enhanced global positioning system. Such intensive extraction suggests that the salt from Duzdagi was not limited to local use by small self-sufficient communities. It was undoubtedly distributed, within a still unknown economic framework, to more far-off destinations. Furthermore, it appears that the ex

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