ARCHEOLOGICAL MUSEUM OF THE REGION OF SOURKHAN DARIA

Certainly one of the country's most interesting museums for fans of ancient history and archaeology, fueled by the many excavations carried out in the region. The museography is organized around nine rooms featuring over 50,000 archaeological finds, from the origins of the region with the Sourkhan oasis (under the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages), to the Chaybanids, via Buddhism and Tamerlane.

Models reconstituting the various monuments give a good overview of the sites, which today are often in a state of ruin. In addition, the films shown in English in each room are an excellent source of information, not only on the history of the region, but also on past and current archaeological missions.

Among the highlights is the treasure trove of copper objects discovered during excavations at Boudhratcha, testifying to the progress made by coppersmiths (almost 300 kg). Note the large polychrome sculptures steeped in Buddhism in the Kushan culture hall. The tenth room is in fact a vault: it contains numerous gold and silver coins and jewelry from Turkmenistan, Iran and Afghanistan, dating from the Greco-Bactrian era to the ^19th century. Two small gold buttons, found on the clothes of a child's skeleton discovered at Fayaz Tepa and dated to the ^8th century BC, have established that the site was inhabited well before the ^4th century BC.