Takhta Bazar - Ekedeshik Cave

In the very south of Turkmenistan, just a few kilometres from the border with Afghanistan, there are amazing historical monuments that have occupied researchers for over a century and captured the imagination of lovers of the past and fans of extreme tourism. These are man-made caves once dug into the soft sandstone on the right bank of the Murghab River. The largest of them is known as Ekedeshik (Yekegovak) – a Cave – near the settlement of Takhta Bazar.

Actually, it is not a cave at all, but catacombs laid out in such a way that it is difficult to get there, because the only narrow entrance, hardly noticeable from the outside, is almost 150 metres above the river, and a very steep path leads down the Karabil hill.

The catacombs are known to have been huge underground dungeons in the Roman Empire, which served as places of worship and burial for the first Christians. Since ancient times, all underground tunnels with long and winding passages have also been called catacombs.

They are found not only in Europe and Russia, but also in Central Asia. Ekedeshik (Yekegovak) Cave in Takhta Bazar is probably the largest and most expressive monument of this kind in Turkmenistan. In Takhta Bazar district there are several other cave complexes (like Ekedeshik) along the right bank of the Murghab.

The entrances to them are in vertical rocky outcrops, so they can be reached either from below via ladders and dangerous paths or from above via ropes.

Everything indicates that the difficult access to the underground premises served only one purpose: to ensure the safety of the inhabitants and to make the place a safe shelter. But who, when and why invented such an ingenious form of housing?

Nowadays, scientists are trying to find an answer to these questions. So far, only the Ekegovak complex has been better studied than others. This two-layered structure has the shape of a direct arch-shaped corridor that reaches 37 metres deep into the coastal strata.

On either side are rectangular rooms facing each other, with entrances to smaller chambers cut out of them. Thirty-five of them are accessible, several are completely collapsed.

In some places there are pits with round holes that have either been filled in or used for storage. In some rooms there is a staircase to the upper floor with a high staircase.

An oval niche reminiscent of an altar closes off the corridor. Here and there there are recesses in the walls for lamps, as the sunlight does not reach here at all. One of the halls of the cave, which is on the whole very modestly designed, obviously served a special purpose: its entrance is marked by a kind of portal, and the interior decoration is particularly elaborate.

To all appearances, a local chief – the head of a clan or another chief – lived here. In fact, there is no evidence of wall paintings typical of Buddhist cave monasteries, no trace of sculptures and other architectural “excesses” found in a cave a few kilometres downstream.

But the walls and vaults of the corridor and rooms, completely covered with traces of percussion instruments, are densely scrawled with autographs of people who stayed here in the past: many inscriptions in Arabic script, even more – Russian names written from the end of the XIX to the beginning of the XX century.

Most of it is the memory of the soldiers of the local border garrison who served in Kushka, the southern outpost of the empire, and in Takhta Bazar – a customs post on the route of caravans coming from Afghanistan.

It is not yet clear how the problem of ventilation was solved in the truly ascetic cells of Ekedeshik (Yekegovak). However, they have undeniable advantages: In the heat of summer they are well cooled, and in the cold of winter there is the warmth of the fireplaces.

From the narrow area in front of the entrance to the catacombs, there is a wide panorama of the neighbourhood: from this height, in good weather, one can overlook the entire area for dozens of kilometres – an important strategic resource for the cave dwellers, who could notice danger long before reaching the cave and hide in their settlement unnoticed from the outside.

Nowadays, we can visit Ekedeshik (Yekegovak) Cave in Takhta Bazar and the neighbouring caves as they were created through centuries of exploitation and long desolation, when something was reshaped by later inhabitants, something collapsed or was simply covered with earth.

Much educational and archaeological research will be needed before the picture becomes a little clearer. Unfortunately, contrary to the claims of some guidebooks, no excavations have been carried out so far.

The first European to see these catacombs and other groups of Karabil caves was the British army captain F. de Laessot. In 1885, he gave a report on them to the Royal Geographical Society in London.

In the same year, the region was annexed by Russia and was inaccessible to foreigners for many hundreds of years. But Russian science lost no time: 125 years ago the caves were explored by the Russian military engineer and diplomat P.M. Lessar, and after him by the mining engineer A.M. Konshin.

Then came a geologist and traveller, the academic V. A. Obruchev, who in 1890 provided the first scientific description of the Karabil Hill and a group of artificial caves there in his book “The Trans-Caspian Depression”. There were many specialists in the twentieth century – geologists, geographers and archaeologists, but the academic G. A. Pugachenkova was the first to provide a detailed description of these caves in 1955.

She dated these structures to the 10th-11th centuries, though this conclusion was based only on the finds collected on the ground, which might indicate later life in the catacombs in the following centuries.

But what lies hidden under the rubble where the archaeologists’ shovel has not yet reached? As long as there are no excavations, there will be no answer to this question, but that does not mean that there are no reasonable assumptions.

Twenty years ago, an interesting hypothesis was voiced, notably by the architectural historian S.G. Khmelnitsky, who recalled that such artificial shelters in Central Asia served as monasteries, mostly Buddhist and sometimes Christian.

A number of such monuments are known in western China (Yungan, Tienlunshan), Afghanistan (Bamian), southern Uzbekistan (Kara-Tepe near Termez) and Tajikistan (Ayvaj). The geometric regularity and straight angles of Yekgovak leave no doubt that it was built by skilled craftsmen and that, at least initially, it was not just a secret dwelling but a monastic dormitory.

A niche at the end of the corridor indicates this, by the way. The nearby Dortgovak complex does not look like an ordinary dungeon either. If these considerations are correct, then the Karabil caves are much older than the X-XI century and, like Kara-Tepe, can be dated to the II-IV century or perhaps even earlier.

As in many other cases, there are many more questions than answers about little-researched monuments. And of course, as usual, there are many legends about such an extraordinary historical monument.

The origin of the catacombs is attributed to the soldiers of Alexander the Great, to mythical creatures or to the first Christians who followed the Apostle Paul and tried to carry their faith far to the East.

Once a secluded retreat, it is now open to tourists: An access road has been built up to the top of the mountain, the complex is electrically lit, the floor is covered with reeds to keep the dust off your feet, and the entrance is open to visitors all day.

Anyone who visits Ekedeshik (Yekegovak) Cave in Takhta Bazar even once is guaranteed to have an unforgettable experience and perhaps ponder another architectural mystery.