Gebekly

Gebekly is the ancient town site in the centre of Merv oasis situated 32 km to the north-west of Gyaur-kala. It represents 88x88m square in plan. Ruins are located 12-13 m high hill. In the centre of the site, there is a large building of the Parthian Period - the House of Ruler. In the centre, there was rooms for living and ceremony and bypass corridors its periphery. Corridors surrounded it on three sides. On the fourth, south side, there was the only entrance to the building with a vast courtyard (iwan) in front of him. Bypass corridors, later divided into separate rooms-compartments, served as accommodation for service personnel and mainly as storage facilities for those entering the strength of goods and cargo. Fortress walls surrounded the monument along its perimeter. There are no signs of settlement around the fortress.

In 1989, a joint Soviet-Italian archaeological expedition was organized to conduct research in Turkmenistan. Since 1992, this expedition was called the Russian-Turkmen-Italian expedition. Of great interest among the excavated monuments of this expedition is the fortress of the Parthian period Gebekly, where numerous and varied archaeological finds were revealed. Among them, more than three thousand bulls with impressions of various seals discovered there are of great scientific interest. Such finds are of great scientific interest and are rarely found during archaeological excavations.

Iconographic analysis of some of the bull collection of Gebekly revealed a variety of plots. However, they are far from being completed. Quite a large number the bull was imprinted with seals with geometric patterns dating back to the Bronze Age of the Merv oasis. These are served for sealing the writing documents, vessels, doors etc. At the same time, the impressions of seals with images of animals are distinguished by a significant variety. Along with the real (horse, deer, lion, antelope, hare, eagle, etc.), it also features fantastic creatures (Pegasus, griffin, hippocampus).