Ilham Aliyev visited the archaeological site of the Neolithic period Goytapa in Tovuz District

President Ilham Aliyev has visited the archaeological site of the Neolithic period Goytapa in Tovuz District.

The President was informed that the ancient archaeological site Goytapa is the biggest settlement relating to the early Neolithic period in Azerbaijan and South Caucasus. The settlement covers an area of more than 2 hectares.

In 2006, an archaeological expedition comprised of specialists from the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences and French experts conducted exploratory observations in the ancient settlement of Goytapa, prepared a topographical plan of the hill and collected surface materials. In order to establish the exact age of the monument, the French National Research Center conducted a radiocarbon analysis of the samples taken from the upper layer of the coal residue. The analysis revealed that the Goytapa settlement dates back to the 6th millennium BC. This suggests that Tovuz has a history of urban culture of 8 millennia.

President Aliyev toured the Goytapa archaeological monument of the Neolithic period.

It was indicated that the antiquity of the monument had aroused a great deal of interest among many reputable scientists and experts around the world. Annual stationary excavations have been conducted since 2008 with the participation of the French National Research Center and the University of Tokyo. The Goytapa settlement is of exceptional importance in studying the main features of development processes in Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus in the Neolithic period. The archaeological excavations carried out here have enabled scientists to explore construction techniques of the Neolithic period and the way of life along the middle reaches of the river Kura in the early Neolithic era.

Then the President examined stone and bone tools discovered in the settlement. It was noted that a scientific analysis of the detected samples of material culture proves that Tovuz is the oldest settlement in the Caucasus. Archeological monuments of the Neolithic period such as Goytapa are internationally viewed as the starting point of primary civilization, a proto city, i.e. a period during which primary urban culture started to emerge and people began to live a compact settlements.

Then President Ilham Aliyev reviewed the stands describing the work done in Goytapa thus far, the results obtained and proposals on restoring the detected structures and transforming the monument into an open-air archeological park. It was noted that the excavations carried out in Goytapa in 2008-2011 revealed the perfect architecture of the ancient settlement in the Neolithic period. According to researchers, such solid structures are not available in any other monument of the Neolithic period in Azerbaijan. In 2009, a presentation about the Goytapa monument of material culture was held at the University of Tokyo, in 2010 at the British Museum in London, in the same year at the College-de-France in Paris, in 2011 at the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and at the National Museum of the History of Georgia. In August 2011, a first summer school of young archaeologists from the CIS was arranged at the Goytapa settlement within the framework of the international “Ancient cultures of the South Caucasus” project with the participation of representatives from Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

It was indicated that the monument is part of the tourist route of the district. According to the “State program on the development of tourism in Azerbaijan in 2010-2014”, the area around the site is to be landscaped this year. Besides, as part of a grant project of the Science Development Fund under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, scientific research is to be continued and an open-air museum, an archeological park, is to be established.

After reviewing the settlement, the President gave instructions and recommendations.