Dr. Shakhzod Takhirov, Engineering Manager for Technical Labs and Service to Industry at Berkeley CEE, joins the international research team that has uncovered Tugunbulak, a newly discovered 120-hectare medieval city in the mountains of Uzbekistan. Dated to the 8th–11th centuries, Tugunbulak and the nearby settlement of Tashbulak are located at elevations exceeding 2,000 meters, placing them among the highest known urban centers of their time, comparable to Machu Picchu in Peru.
This significant archaeological discovery sheds new light on high-altitude urbanism along the Silk Road and was recently published in Nature. Major global media outlets, including BBC, National Geographic, and The New York Times, have featured it.