A publication of the Archaeological Institute of America
Special Introductory Offer!  Archaeologists excavate unique
medieval ruins at the center of a Siberian lake   (Copyright
Por-Bajin Cultural Foundation)  University of Reading
archaeologist Heinrich Härke has spent his career researching
the European Dark Ages. But at the invitation of the Por-Bajin
Cultural Foundation and archaeologist Irina Arzhantseva, Härke
and a team of his students recently spent a season at a site in
the mountains of the Russian republic of Tuva.  Russia's most
mysterious archaeological site dominates a small island in the
center of a remote lake high in the mountains of southern
Siberia. Here, just 20 miles from the Mongolian border, the
outer walls of the medieval ruins of Por-Bajin still rise 40
feet high, enclosing an area of about seven acres criss-crossed
with the labyrinthine remains of more than 30 buildings.  Por-
Bajin ("Clay House" in the Tuvan language) was long thought to
be a fortress built by the Uighurs, a nomadic