When Divers Explored This Lake, They Found a 1,000-Year-Old Lost City. What Swallowed It Whole?
Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:
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Underwater archaeologists exploring a lake in Kyrgyzstan found a lost city.
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The waters of Lake Issyk-Kul have hidden an important Silk Road city since the beginning of the 15th century.
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Experts believe an earthquake redistributed the lake waters and submerged the city.
Underwater archaeologists diving in one of the world’s deepest lakes think they’ve found something remarkable. They believe Lake Issyk-Kul has hidden the secrets of a prominent medieval Silk Road trading city since a massive earthquake in the 15th century.
The lake, located in modern-day Kyrgyzstan, likely took over the ancient Toru-Aygyr city after an earthquake changed the local landscape. In 2025, an international team of divers found several traces of the city, which indicate links to both a Turkic dynasty and Islamic rule.
Diving down to a maximum of 13 feet deep into the lake, the team discovered buildings made of brick, the remains of a stone millstone likely used for grinding grain into flour, and a Muslim burial ground, as well as remains of additional wooden structures and plenty of ceramic artifacts.
“The monument under study is a city or a large commercial agglomeration on one of the important sections of the Silk Road,” Valery Kolchenko, a researcher at the Institute of History, Archaeology, and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences and head of the host country’s underwater expedition, said in a statement from the Russian Geographical Society.
The finds help solidify Toru-Aygyr as an important stop on the Silk Road, Maksim Menshikov, head of the expedition with the Institute of Archaeology of the RAS, said in a statement. The Silk Road, a trading route connecting China with the West, was first established in the first century B.C.E. and flourished until around the 15th century.
The key finds, which further illustrate Toru-Aygyr’s importance, include the remains of a prominent building and a Muslim burial ground. The expedition reported that the architecture discovered indicated a community was once there, including a large community building with external decoration that could have been a mosque, bathhouse, or even a small Islamic university. Remains of structures made of stone and wooden beams are still underwater at the site. Nearby, the team found a 13th or 14th-century Muslim necropolis , actively eroding due to the water. The remains of two bodies there were turned to face Mecca, typical for Muslim burial practices.
The researchers said that at the beginning of the 15th century, an earthquake submerged the city beneath the water. Kolchenko said they believe the residents may have already left the settlement at that time, but the earthquake further shifted the region’s population drastically. The rich medieval settlement civilization ceased to exist, they suggest, and nomads took their place.
The findings, which also included an older burial site next to rounded and rectangular structures, along with a wealth of medieval artifacts, including ceramics and a wholly intact vessel, showed the transition between the Turkic dynasty rule of the Karakhanids to Islam under the Mongol state’s Golden Horde .
Menshikov believes that around the 10th century the Karakhanid state formed in the area, a Turkic dynasty with a variety of religions. The ruling elite turned to Islam, though, which became more widespread in Central Asia in the 13th century.
“The section of the Silk Road in the Issyk-Kul Lake area was under control of the Karakhanids,” Menshikov said. “The Chinese considered this territory a zone of their interests, but they could not control it. Nevertheless, we see that this location is reflected in Chinese sources. This gives us hope to correlate historical materials with the results of our archaeological excavations.”
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