Archaeological Excavations on the SCPX Pipeline, Azerbaijan 2013-2018

The SCPX pipeline, completed in 2018, follows the line of the earlier BTC and SCP pipelines across Azerbaijan towards Georgia. The project included an archaeological programme that supplemented the discoveries of the earlier two projects. The results were very similar, but were significantly different from the earlier work. The SCPX work was carried out on 48 locations using a team of national and international archaeologists. Chalcolithic material was again found at Poylu, Xocaxan and Aılı Dərə. The Kura Araz culture of the early Bronze Age was indicated with burials at Soyuqbulaq and Tovuzçay. The Xocalı-Gədəbəy culture of the late Bronze Age early Iron Age is well represented with a cemetery found at Tovuzçay II and the kurgans at Borsunlu Camp. Antique period jar grave cemeteries were found in the Yevlax area at Əmirarx, Bəyimsarov, Səmədabad and Yaldili. Medieval settlement sites were excavated at Əmirarx, Faxrali, Lək and Hacialili. The major discovery of the project was the medieval castle at Kərpiclitəpə. This was a rectangular structure with towers at each corner and evidence of occupation that probably ended with the Mongol invasion. The report is structured as an introduction to the project, with a brief summary of excavations. The detail for each site can be accessed in the report by links to the archive on the ADS website in a similar form to the BTC/SCP project report. The reader can thus access all the information for each site together with detailed analysis of radiocarbon and other analyses of the sites for all the work in that area from the various projects. Taken as a whole, the work on the three projects provides a means to comprehend part of the very broad early history of northwest Azerbaijan.