Located in what is now South Kazakhstan, Sauran may have been originally settled as early as the seventh century. By the 10th century it was a flourishing metropolis, described by the medieval geographer Al-Maqdisi as a “large city surrounded by seven walls.” Archeologists were puzzled when they failed to find the seven walls in these ruins, until they found another nearby site and realized that the city moved sometime in the 12th or 13th century. No one knows why the city was moved. Some believe that the original city was abandoned because of the presence…
