Rabat-i Kamal

Rabat-i Kamal is the ruin of a Kara-Khanid caravanserai (rabat) of the 11th century on the old road along the Karatau foothills west of the Talas valley, in the Karatau planning zone of the Autonomous Tribal Regions. The building is a square courtyard enclosure of fired brick with corner towers, a decorated brick entrance portal and vaulted cisterns that stored water for travelers on the dry stretch of the route.^[1] Its name combines rabat, the term for a fortified roadhouse (see Rabat (Architecture)), with a personal name, Kamal, attributed in local tradition to its founder. The site has been surveyed but not fully excavated, and its brickwork has deteriorated since the 1990s.^[1]

References

1. ^ Talas State University Press (2014). Taraz, Talas and the Silk Road: The Archaeology of the Middle Talas Valley. Talas.