ABSTRACT
Dzhankent is a deserted town of the Early Middle Ages referred to in written sources as the capital of the Turkic Oguz nomads. Located in the Syr-Darya delta, it sits on the intersection of two transcontinental trade routes: the Northern Silk Road, and the north–south corridor linking Khwarazm to the Volga and ultimately the Baltic Sea province. New fieldwork has shown that it was founded in the late sixth century but was re-built in the late ninth to tenth centuries as a fortified town on the Khwarazmian model. After a floruit which coincided with the ‘silver flow’ of dirhams to the north, it was abandoned by the early eleventh century. Chronology, location, and details of the evidence suggest that Dzhankent operated as a transhipping port in the north–south slave and luxuries trade.
