The Karakhanid Khanate was formed in the mid-10th century in the Tien Shan and existed until the mid-12th century. It was a huge khanate and included the territory from the Ili River in the east to the Amu Darya River in the west. At different times, the capital of the Karakhandis were different cities: Balasagun and Uzgen in the territory of Kyrgyzstan, Samarkand in the territory of Uzbekistan, and Kashgar in East Turkestan.
Balasagun was the capital in the 10th - 12th centuries. One of the features of medieval cities in the Middle East/Central Asia was the minarets built near the mosque, which served as calls to prayer and as observation towers. The first minarets in Central Asia have been known since the 10th century and were built from mud bricks. Starting from the 11th century, such structures were built from baked bricks. In the 10th – 12th centuries, minarets began to be erected on the territory of Kyrgyzstan, one of which was Burana Tower. The original height of the tower was 47 meters, now it is only 24 meters, the rest was destroyed after a major earthquake in the 19th century. The entrance to the tower is at a height of 5 meters. From the entrance to the top of the tower, there is a spiral staircase with brick steps, with skylights on the east and north sides.
In addition to the tower, the central part of Balasagun is a Shahristan in the form of a quadrangle. It was the center of the city, built up with majestic architectural structures such as minarets, mosques, mausoleums, and residential buildings of the wealthy part of the townspeople. Outside the fortification there was a rabat, where traders and artisans lived; it was surrounded by two rows of fortress walls. The total area of Balasagun reaches 25-30 km. There was a necropolis next to the Burana Tower. Mausoleums were intended for the burial of the dead.
On the territory of Balasagun, you can see well-preserved stone sculptures - “balbals”, monuments of the ancient Turks, dating back to the 5th – 10th centuries. Usually, they are a sculpture with careful detailing of the figure, headdress, clothing, jewelry, and weapons. In most cases, a warrior was depicted as a balbal with a sword in one hand and a wine vessel in the other. Balbals were installed for great warriors or deceased rich nobility.
Balasagun was not just the capital of the Karakhanid dynasty, it also stood on the Great Silk Road and was a crossroads of different cultures, peoples, languages, and religions. In addition to various Turkic tribes, Sogdians lived in Balasagun and carried out trade on the Silk Road. In addition to the main religion of Islam, Tengrism, Zoroastrianism, and later Nestorian Christianity coexisted harmoniously here. During the excavations, many Nestorian crosses, Zoroastrian ossuaries, stones with inscriptions in Sogdian, Arabic, and Turkic languages, as well as Buddhist stone mandalas were found. Chinese and Buddhist monks often walked along the Silk Road from China to India and back, and they also left their mark. Balasagun was also a center of culture, writing, and literature in the 11th and 12th centuries. It was in Balasagun that the famous Turkic poet Jusup Balasagun was born and raised, who wrote his first treatise “Kutadgu Bilig”, which means “Blessed Knowledge”. This was the first treatise in the Turkic language and laid the foundation for the development of other Turkic languages.
After the 12th century, due to constant raids and wars with the Kara-Khitans and later with the Mongols, the Karakhanid dynasty ceased to exist, and the city of Balasagun gradually fell into decay; from the 15th to the 19th centuries nothing is known about it. Since the 19th century, after the territory of Kyrgyzstan became part of the Russian Empire, Balasagun has become the object of research by Russian scientists. Much attention was paid to the Burana Tower and Balasagun in Soviet times, most of the archaeological, conservation, and restoration work was done from the 1930s to the 1970s of the 20th century. As a result of the work, the tower was restored, a museum was created, and all the excavated artifacts were exhibited in the museum at the Burana Tower. Since then, the Burana Museum complex has been fully operational and open to the public. In 2014, Balasagun, along with Suyab and Nevaket, was registered in the UNESCO World Heritage List, from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and China in the category of “Silk Road: a network of routes of the Chang'an-Tianshan corridor”, consisting of 33 sites and 3 sites inscribed from Kyrgyzstan. Since then, the importance of Balasagun has only increased and now it is under the protection of UNESCO.
