Alkhan Kala

On the Sunzha River near Alkhan-Kala lie the remains of a large ancient settlement, extending for more than a kilometer along the riverbank. Burial mounds surround the site, while deep layers of occupation record a long history of habitation. Archaeologists have linked the settlement with the Alan world of the North Caucasus; it has been proposed as a center of a cluster of settlements in the Sunzha valley during the tenth to twelfth centuries. The river joined the foothills to the Terek plain farther north.