These two crumbling 7th-century koshk (fortresses) outside the walls of Merv are interesting for their ‘petrified stockade’ walls, as writer Colin Thubron describes them, composed of ‘vast clay logs up-ended side by side’. They were constructed by the Sassanians in the 7th century and were still in use by Seljuq sultans, 600 years later, as function rooms. These are some of the most symbolic and important structures in western Merv archaeology and they have no analogies anywhere else. Great Kyz Kala is now fenced off, but you can clamber into and explore the interior of Little Kyz Kala .
