Historical Reference |
Geok Tepe Geok Depe |
"General Grodekoff in his work (chaps, xiv., xv.), supplies the following details of the Turkmen fortress. It was a quadrilateral enclosure, its north and south sides measuring respectively 980 and 560 yards, its eastern and western faces 1,680 and 1,575 yards. The wall consisted of an earthen rampart, 35 feet thick at the base, and from 21 to 28 feet thick at the top, and 15 feet high, thrown up and trodden hard by men and horses, and then covered with a 5-feet coating of mud. On the top of the wall were an inner and an outer parapet 4i feet high, and respectively 2 1/2 and 3 feet thick, with a large number of traverses, designed to prolong the defence, even against an enemy who had penetrated to the interior. In the outer parapet loopholes were cut 9 inches wide, at a distance of 3| feet apart. All round the outside was a ditch, with varying depth of from 6 to 9 feet, and breadth of from 12 to 17 feet ; the scarp and counterscarp being almost perpendicular, and rifle-pits and steps being dug in places out of the latter. In the inside, at the foot of the wall, was also a trench, 42 feet broad, but only from 1 foot to 2 1/2feet in depth. There were 21 gates or openings in the walls, masked by large semicircular traverses outside, the ditch being crossed by dykes. A branch from the Sakiz-Yeb stream was conducted into the fort through one of these openings, and having been separated into two channels, passed out again. A broad open space ran down the centre of the enclosure, but in the remaining area it was calculated that there were pitched 13,000 kibitkas." "Russia in Central Asia in 1889 and the Anglo-Russian question" By George Nathaniel Curzon Curzon "Geok Tepe, I should remark, is a misnomer, the true name of the place being Yengi Sheher, or the New Town, it having been called into existence only in 1878, at the commencement of the military operations of the Russians against the Akhal Tekkes territory. Geok Tepe is a long- deserted village lying about three or four miles to the north of the new town, and well out into the desert, which at this point approaches very close to the mountains." Merv Oasis Vol II Page 67 |
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