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Termez Archaeological Museum. There are truly unique treasures of great historical value here. The museum was built in 2001; the celebration associated with its opening was timed to the 2500th anniversary of Tormez.
Those wishing to visit the museum can get acquainted with more than twenty seven thousand exhibits of great historical importance, among which there are sculptures, ancient paintings, ancient coins and objects of ancient life. Visitors can take part in exciting excursions organized by the museum staff.
The Termez Museum is unique not only in that it contains unique exhibits, but also in the building itself with its architectural features. The building has ten rooms. Upon entering the building, visitors enter the first hall, which is called the main one, and from there you can get to the remaining 9 halls. The exhibits presented in the first hall are simply mind-boggling. Here you can see tall hums and sculptures with stone pools. And although all the exhibits cannot be attributed to one era, they are still united by the highest level of their performance. In this hall you can see a relief map of the river with the name of Surkhandarya with the locations of all the main architectural monuments indicated on it. The remaining nine rooms also house exhibits from different eras.
The first hall. Here are exhibits proving the fact that ancient people lived in the Sukhandarya river delta. This is confirmed by household items found in Teshiktash cave. The cave was a settlement of ancient Neanderthals, in which archaeologists found stone blades, scrapers and cutters used in hunting and in processing animal skins, as well as the bones of the animals themselves. Based on this, we can conclude that families of hunters lived in the cave.
The settlements of primitive people were also found in the Kugitanga cave and the Baysuntau grotto. It seems that the inhabitants of Teshiktash moved here as well.
In the later period of the Mesolithic, the inhabitants of these places learned to hunt using a bow and arrow, and in a later period they started breeding domestic animals.
Second hall. This room contains household items dating back to the Bronze Age. These are various bronze tools, pottery wheels, copper mirrors, various vessels and figurines. During this period, the craft began to separate from agriculture and the first systems of land irrigation appeared.
The earliest monuments of this period include Sapallitepa on the banks of the Ulanbulaksay River. Not far from them, on an area of 100 hectares, was the settlement of Jarkutan. Here archaeologists have found the first temple of fire worshipers.
Third room. It contains values related to the times of ancient Bactria. It was at this time that agriculture began to flourish and artisans began to make iron tools. And it was at this time that such cities as Jandavlyat-Tepa, Haitbad and Kyzyl-Tepa arose. Inside these fortresses, houses were built for the residence of the ruler of the city and ordinary residents, and inside the city there were workshops for potters and other artisans. An excellent confirmation of this was the found examples of their art: arrowheads with three blades, stone or iron sickles in the shape of a crescent.
Unfortunately, archaeologists were unable to find the main part of the architectural monuments of those times, since they were almost completely destroyed during the military campaigns of Alexander the Great.
The fourth hall is dedicated to the culture of Bactria. This is a later culture created by Alexander the Great and dated to the moment of the formation of the Kushan state. Judging by the coins, paintings and sculptures found by archaeologists, ethnic and Indian cultures had a great influence on the development, and this influenced all the important branches of the Surkhan oasis. Visitors will appreciate the statuettes presented to their attention, made of ivory, marble, stone and glass monuments of architecture.
At the same time, the foundation was laid for the growth and development of the settlement called Old Termez, which in the near future will become the craft center of the whole region.
The fifth hall is completely dedicated to the exhibits related to the Kushan period, because once Turkestan and North India were part of one state, which could not but leave its mark on cultural values and life. The Bactrians actively developed a religion, as evidenced by the numerous idols-figurines that have survived to this day, discovered in the process of archeological excavations.
In the sixth hall, visitors are presented with the culture of Northern Tokharistan of the early medieval period. In those days, cities had two main components - the presence of a citadel-fortress and a shahristan. Architectural delights are presented in the form of intricate motifs with refined domes and graceful arches. During the construction, mainly raw bricks were used. The theme of religion completely absorbed the city, which is confirmed by the large number of preserved temples and sanctuaries in which objects of religious worship were found, these are bottles for antimony, and glass vessels, and cups with double handles.
The seventh hall is represented by medieval Tokharistan with its highest, for those times, development of crafts. In addition to the already familiar, for ancient Eastern architecture, such buildings as shahrastan and fortresses-citadels, there are buildings called rabads, these are premises intended for artisans. Rabads, in their essence, are the handicraft part of the city, consisting of whole neighborhoods, where there were workshops of craftsmen working with metal, glass, clay, the buildings themselves were lined with burnt bricks. Separately, it is necessary to mention the ancient collection of copper products, discovered by archaeologists during excavations in Budrac, with a total weight of about three hundred kilograms.
The eighth room contains samples of applied art from the Tamurid times. This includes military armor, and a huge number of household utensils (jugs, chess, dishes, dishes, handmade lamps and much more) are presented, fragments of architecture that have perfectly preserved their original appearance.
In the ninth room, an exposition of antiques, products of large handicraft industries of the sixteenth twentieth centuries of the cities of Baysun, Denau and Sheribad is presented to your attention. In the halls we will see how tools are created both from wood and metal, samples of weapons production and jewelry craftsmanship, clay pottery vessels. A large number of exhibits presented tells about Termez, which was part of the Bukhara Emirate and which, being a border city, was closed for visits by tourists and city guests. But today everything has changed and the city of Termez during the years of gained independence is always glad to guests.
