Toprak-Kala, palace of the kings of Khwarezm

Toprak-Kala (“fortress covered with earth”) is a walled city in the ancient oasis of Khwarezm (Chorasmia) on the right bank of the lower Amu Darya. The building of this new royal seat seems to have been begun by King Artav in the second half of the 2nd century; his coins were found there together with coins of the Kushan emperors Vima Kadphises and Kanishka. The palace had many halls decorated with wall paintings, among them images of Zoroastrian deities, and with painted clay sculpture — statues of rulers and figures in a Hellenistic manner that reflects the influence of Kushan and Gandharan art.

The palace archive held documents written in black ink on leather and on wooden tablets and sticks, in an early cursive form of the Khwarezmian script: records of goods issued, lists of men — free and slave — and other household documents and tags. Some of the economic documents are dated to years 188–252 of the Khwarezmian era. When that era began is disputed; the reading of these years as the 3rd century AD follows the now prevailing view that it started in the 30s or 40s of the 1st century AD. According to Yu. A. Rapoport, all the palaces of Toprak-Kala were abandoned at the same time, probably when the Afrighid dynasty came to power in 305, and stood empty while the town itself was inhabited until the 6th century; other accounts say that in the early 4th century the city walls were rebuilt and the palace turned into a citadel.

The site was discovered in 1938 by the Khwarezm archaeological and ethnographic expedition of S. P. Tolstov, which excavated the palace in 1945–1950; the city was explored further in 1965–1975, and the palace was published in a monograph in 1984.