Sisem Ata

Sisem Ata is a great necropolis near the western edge of the Ustyurt plateau, along old caravan routes through Mangystau. Its earliest burial monuments are associated with the Golden Horde period, around the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Small stone markers bear tribal signs of Oghuz and Turkmen groups, while later Kazakh graves and mausoleums expanded the cemetery. Carved stones, enclosures and domed monuments record generations of worship and remembrance in this dry pastoral country.