From April 26 to May 11, 2025, Luwian Studies undertook a research trip to Central Asia. The aim was to gain a better understanding of the earliest and longest trade routes of Bronze Age cultures in the eastern Mediterranean region to the tin deposits in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. The region is characterized by the simultaneous occurrence of several valuable raw materials, including copper, tin, gold, and lapis lazuli.

The expedition was attended by Sergei Yazvenko, Professor of Ecology at the International Agricultural University in Tashkent, Michael Timpson, former environmental consultant at Environmental Resources Management in the USA, and Eberhard Zangger. The trip took them to the historic tin mines of Karnab northeast of Bukhara in Uzbekistan, to the archaeological site of Sarazm in Tajikistan – one of the largest proto-urban settlements in Central Asia dating from between 3500 and 2400 BCE – as well as to Mushiston, a mine located at an altitude of 3,000 meters on the edge of the metal-rich Zerafshan Valley, in a region where large-scale gold mining continues to this day. In Djarkutan (photo), north of Termez, one of the largest settlements of the Late Bronze Age in the so-called oasis culture has been under archaeological investigation since 1973.

Zangger, Yazvenko and Timpson have been working together for decades. Yazvenko and Zangger since 1987; Timpson and Zangger since 1992. Timpson is a soil scientist, Yazvenko a botanist and pollen expert. A joint research project involving the three scientists was the reconstruction of the landscape history around Nestor’s palace in Pylos in the Late Bronze Age.