About seven thousand years ago in Central Asia there was a state of civilization which the scale of achievements can be delivered in a number of great cultures of the Ancient world.

In 1904, in southern Turkmenistan in the desert near the border with Iran in the village of Anau archaeologist and geologist of new Hampshire (USA) Rafael Pampelli discovered the ruins of an ancient settlement. Excavations were begun by Soviet archaeologists only in the 1970s, when in the Karakum desert in the area of 161 80 km discovered the ruins of many settlements, some of them are so large that they can be called cities. The ancient city was characterized by a very interesting model of building: the building defended hundreds of meters from each other and were surrounded by several rows of walls. The architecture was different monumentality, which indicates a very high degree of development of the society. The walls of the houses had a length of 92 to 152 m inside buildings were plenty of room that can accommodate hundreds of people. All of the buildings date back to V-I millenniums BC Complex irrigation system has resulted in the ancient inhabitants to turn the desert into a fertile oasis and grow rich harvests of wheat and barley. Fat pastures gave fodder to herds of camels, sheep, goats and donkeys.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union excavations in Anau was stopped and was resumed only in recent years with the participation of American archaeologists. Expedition 2000 was headed by Professor of anthropology from the Pennsylvania Museum of archaeology and anthropology Frederick hiebert. Archaeologists have made a surprising discovery - contact seal carved with her writings related to approximately 2300 B.C. was Found that the written characters cannot be attributed to Mesopotamia, nor to Iran, neither to Indian nor to Chinese writing systems. From here we can conclude that in Anau existed a highly independent civilization, who had their own written language. The inhabitants of Anau had used the same forms of agriculture and animal husbandry, and residents of Mesopotamia. This suggests the idea of the existence of ties between the Central Asian state Anau with the Sumerians.

Key of life in the desert, of course, is water. The Sumerians in the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers drained wetlands and irrigated the desert. This required a lot of work, the result of which was the creation of Eden on earth. Obviously, this kind of work was done and in Anau. People have created this complex irrigation channels, changing the course of rivers. In the desert bloomed beautiful oasis. And just as in Mesopotamia and the Nile, he stretched a narrow band, so it was possible one foot to stand in the beautiful garden, and the other in the Sands of the desert. About the high culture of the ancient inhabitants of Anau says many beautiful pieces of ceramics and pottery belonging to the III-IV millenniums BC Many designs for beauty and quality not inferior to the Chinese. Faience very thin, their thickness does not exceed 3,2 mm Greater part of products of the ancient masters are not painted, but they hit a beautiful play of colors of beige to yellow and red. Such artistic expressiveness achieved through burning. Some faience complement the predominantly white and blue colors and floral motifs. Ceramics and faience very beautiful even by today's standards.

Ceramics from Anau

Apart from ceramics, archaeologists found a lot of metal and bone artifacts, Dating back 4100 years. Handle bronze axes made in the form of a bird's head. Preserved in some samples eyes birds made of hematite. This mineral is not in the vicinity of Anau, most likely it was brought from other regions, which affirmed the existence of extensive trade links of the ancient state.

Also found the carefully polished bone tubes, hollow inside, with carved on them ornaments and images of people, animals and plants. Archeologists assume, that the tubes have a ritual purpose, as were found among the ruins of the ephedra plant, which Zoroastrians used in the manufacture of hallucinogenic ritual drink. Use of a mixture of ephedra with poppy and opium invokes visions or hallucinations, allowing the believers to be "closer to God". Their dead inhabitants of Anau had buried in the crypts. Often near the dead were left many household items, utensils and food supplies. Clearly, people believe in an afterlife, and felt that all these items can be useful in her late. However, researchers have found surprisingly few graves. According to Professor of Hiebert, inhabitants of Anau had burned the dead, as adopted by the Zoroastrians, who consider that the cremation facilitates the release of the soul of the deceased body. Unfortunately, the fact that most of the dead were burnt, not possible to determine exactly how many people lived in Anau.

In some homes Anau on the inner walls were beautiful ornaments and stylized image of people with slanted eyes. For images, and remains one can judge the appearance of representatives of Central Asian civilization. Found skeletons allows to make a conclusion that these people did not differ by a large increase, had a high forehead and a slightly prominent lower jaw forward.

The expedition 2000, in addition to print with carved inscriptions, made another startling discovery: on the wall of one of the houses found the picture, looking like a man, clad in a suit. Some archaeologists believe his testimony contacts of inhabitants of Anau with extraterrestrial aliens visiting the Earth in ancient times. Professor hiebert refers to this idea skeptically. According to him, the picture on the wall depicts a priest in ritual suit with a headdress that covers the face.

Yet the study of ancient culture is not finished. It is not clear what caused the decline of civilization in Anau in the I Millennium BC - climate change, war, or something else. Why desert Sands swallowed the once beautiful city? What regions traded residents of the state, what was the economic structure and the management system? The answers to these questions yet to be received. The text found on the print is not yet solved. Unfortunately, it is only found to date sample of writing ancient Anau. The studies will be continued, and the results will certainly help to reduce the ancient Central Asian civilization worthy place in history.