Khalchayan

A settlment site with a scattered layout on the right bank of the Surkhandarya river in 10 km to the north-east of the present-day town of Denau. The settlement emerged in the Greco-Bactrian period. It's sqare citadel (240 X 240 m), surrounded with a fortress wall and a moat, was built in the 3rd century B.C. During the Kushan period (first centuries A.D.) the settlement was growing, and the citadel walls were repaired many times. At the time, most buldings in Khalchayan were concentrated along a one-kilometre section of the canal that brought water from the Surkhandarya. Of monumental buildings, the most prominent one was the palace, later transformed into a temple of a dynasty cult. It is separately standing building of 35 X 26 metres, with three main groups of premises: the central group of cereminal rooms, and the trasury and the armory flanking it. The ceremonial group has a cross-axial layout and consists of a colonnaide with six columns, a hall with sufas (raised platforms) and a room with two columns, supposedly a throne-room or a cella. The building was roofed with tiles and antefixes. The cornice of the facade was decorated with merlons painted red, like the antefixes. The interior of the building was decorated with murals and friezes along the walls. Polychromatic topical and ornamental paintings in the Khalchayan palace were done on clay or stucco plaster without preliminary outlines. Sculptural friezes in Khalchayan were characterized by a combination of diverse volumetric solututions: round sculptures, high relief and bas-relief alternated, depending on their position in the interior. According to G.A. Pugachenkova, the palace was built in the 1st century B.C. or at the turn of the milleniun. The palace was destroyed in the second half or the end of the 3rd century A.D., but the settlement site was partially habitable in the Early Middle Ages.