Skip to content

Amankutan

Wooded gorge about 40 km south of Samarkand with a Middle Palaeolithic cave at about 1300 m, a national nature park since 2022.

NatureMiddle Palaeolithic

About the place

Amankutan is a green valley in Urgut district, about 40 km south of Samarkand, on the M-39 road across the Zarafshan range. Woods cover the slopes, and since 2022 an area of 1,500 hectares has been protected as a national nature park. The drive from Samarkand takes about an hour.

Above the village, at about 1,300 m, is a cave found in 1947 by the archaeologist D. N. Lev. Stone tools of the Mousterian culture show that people used it in the Middle Palaeolithic. Walks up the gorge to the cave make a good half-day trip from the city, especially in spring and early summer.

Why go

  • Middle Palaeolithic cave
  • Wooded mountain gorge
  • Easy half day from Samarkand

Sources (1)

  1. 1.Wikidata

Nearby

  • Nature

    3 km away

    Takhtakaracha Pass

    Mountain pass at 1,675–1,780 m on the M-39 road between Samarkand and Shahrisabz, about an hour's drive from Samarkand, with views over the Zarafshan range.

  • Qaynar MosqueEnsembles

    10 km away

    Qaynar Mosque

    A village mosque of the late 1890s in Qaynar, Kitob district, built by community effort, with carved plane and juniper wood and a porch on all sides.

  • Mausoleums

    13 km away

    Hazrati Bashir Mausoleum

    18th-century mausoleum of the Yassavi sheikh Sayyid Ahmad Bashir in Bashir village, Kitob district, on the national heritage list since 2019.

  • Museums

    21 km away

    Kitab International Latitude Station

    An observatory in Kitab opened on 14 November 1930 to track the wobble of the Earth's axis along the 39°08′ N parallel.