Abstract
The article publishes the results of several years of excavations at the settlement of Balanda, on the territory of the ancient delta of the Syr Darya, where the agricultural Chirikrabat archaeological culture was widespread in the second half of the I millennium BC. The Balanda settlement is the center of a small agricultural oasis of the IV-II centuries BC, which was based on the main canal, between the channels of the Inkardarya and Zhanadarya lower reaches of the Syr Darya and the Aral Sea, as a whole. The center of the settlement and the entire oasis was the fortified manor-fortress of Balanda I. On Balandy 1, several rooms were opened, the remains of a large monumental building. Next to the fortress, Manor 2 was excavated, as a result, three rooms with hearths were opened, in the center the remains of two relatively different-time firing pottery furnaces. During the excavations, more than 50 fragments of ceramics were found. All pottery, in any case, when it is possible to determine the shape and type of vessel, has direct analogies in the ceramic complexes of the Chirikrabat culture.