Talk:Gonur Depe

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Discussion for: Gonur Depe • View • Links • Related changes

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Page scope

Gonur Depe covers the Bronze Age site of Gonur Depe in the Murghab delta of Turkmenistan as a cannabis site: the hemp reported by its excavator in the vessels of the Gonur temenos, the re-examination that found broomcorn millet instead, the textile analyses and the readings on each side. The site's general archaeology is given only as far as the finds need it.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Sources

Sarianidi (2003), Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 9(1), "Margiana and Soma-Haoma": the temples and white rooms, the vessels and their reported contents, the doubts from Helsinki and his reply and the soma-haoma reading, with the editor's note by J. E. M. Houben.
Bakels (2003), Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 9(1), in the same issue: the re-examination of the white-room material from Gonur and Togolok-21, the second opinions and the failed pollen extraction.
Sarianidi (2002), Margush, pp. 194–197, with Sarianidi (2007), Necropolis of Gonur, pp. 174–175 and 330–337: the excavator's later accounts of the hemp and the textile analyses, as already cited on Turkmenistan.
Billings et al. (2022), Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 10: the setting in the Murghab fan, the date of the culture and the citation of Bakels's identification as tentative.
Ren et al. (2019), Science Advances 5: the later reading of the Gonur claims.
Reynaud et al. (2020), PNAS 117: the cloth from a warrior's grave.

Works cited at second hand

N. R. Meyer-Melikyan and N. A. Avetov (1998), "Analysis of floral remains in the ceramic vessel from the Gonur temenos", appendix I to Sarianidi's Margiana and Protozoroastrism (Athens: Kapon), pp. 176–177, the original identification, is given as Bakels and Sarianidi report it.

Source discrepancies

Which part of Gonur. Sarianidi and Bakels speak of the "white room" of the Gonur temenos; Billings et al. speak of vessels at Gonur South. The article uses each source's own term and does not equate them.
What Bakels saw. Bakels judged her Gonur pieces to be the material in Meyer-Melikyan and Avetov's photographs, but could not reproduce their separation of the layers and wondered whether all the material was the same. The article reports both statements.
Pollen. Sarianidi (2007) and Meyer-Melikyan and Avetov report hemp pollen; Bakels and Bottema found no pollen preserved. The article gives both.
Strength of the rejection. Bakels (2003) and Billings et al. (2022) call the millet identification an opinion and a tentative one; Ren et al. (2019) call the original identifications erroneous and the impressions "clearly" millet. The article attributes each wording.
The temenos as a temple. The temple reading is Sarianidi's; the article attributes it throughout.

Infobox values

Coordinates. From gazetteers, as none of the cited papers publishes them (see Georeferencing).
Dates of the find. Left empty. No cited paper dates the vessel contents. The culture's span (about 2250 to 1700 BCE, Billings et al.) is not a date of the finds.
Site type. Settlement, as Billings et al. class Gonur depe; the temple reading is Sarianidi's.
Cannabis finds and analyses. Impressions and pollen, the two kinds of evidence claimed; morphology and pollen analysis, the two methods used by the claim and the re-examination. The disputed flag is set because Bakels rejects the identification.
Where the finds are now. Not stated in any cited source; left empty.

Georeferencing

The coordinates (38.21, 62.04) are the site as two gazetteers place it; none of the cited papers prints a position. Wikidata (Q3110595) gives 38.2133° N, 62.0375° E, and the centre of OpenStreetMap's outline of the site (way 301330523, Gonur Tepe) is at 38.2118° N, 62.0368° E, about 0.2 km away. The point lies in the Murghab delta in Mary Province, where the papers place the site. Éloise 23:05, 29 October 2026 (+07)