Jankent
Coordinates: 45°30′N 62°27′E / 45.500°N 62.450°E Jankent (Yangikent, Eni-Kent, Djanikand, Yenikent, Yanikand, all meaning New City in Turkic, al-Karyat al-hadith, Dihi Naw, Shehrkent) was a large trading center on the caravan route from Central Kazakhstan to Horezm and Itil regions. Jankent ruins are located on the left bank of the lower Syr Darya, about 25 km southwest from the city Kазалы in the Kазалы district of Kyzyl-Orda province in Kazakhstan.
Archeological excavations found that the initial settlement was established in the 1st century BCE. Written sources mentioned Eni-Kent in the 10th century CE. In the 10th and 11th centuries it was a capital of the Oguz Yabgu State, but in the 12th century Jankent was abandoned. Another Turkic people, Kipchaks and Kimeks of the Kimek Kaganate ended the state by the 12th century. By that time, Selçuk Bey and his Kınık tribe headed to Persia to found their own Muslim state which in the future would become the Great Seljuq Empire, and a part of the state population moved eastward to the N.Pontic areas.
Jankent was surveyed in 1867 by P. Lerch, and in 1946 and 1963 by Chorasmian Archaeological-Ethnological Expedition headed by S.P. Tolstov, it collected materials on the city's history, architecture, culture, and occupations.
References
- Lerch P., Archaeological trip to the Turkestan Territory in 1867, St. Petersburg, 1870
- Tolstov S.P., City of Guzes, "Soviet Ethnography", 1947, No 3.
Translated from Great Soviet Encyclopedia http://bse.sci-lib.com/article025457.html