A gold statue of former president Saparmurad Niyazov rotates to continually face the Sun atop the Neutrality Arch, Ashgabat, Turkm. © velirina/Shutterstock.com In late 2006, after more than two decades of rule, Niyazov died suddenly of. Fears that the absence of a designated successor would threaten the country’s stability were not immediately realized, though the naming of former minister of health as acting president—a departure from the dictates of the country’s constitution—was greeted with some surprise. The country’s first (at least nominally) contested elections were held in February of the following year, and, amid widespread that they were marred by fraud, Berdymukhammedov was declared the winner and was formally inaugurated as Turkmenistan’s president. Early in his presidency, Berdymukhammedov took steps toward dismantling the vestiges of Niyazov’s personality cult and reversing some of his controversial orders.

Prestonica Turkmenistana je Ašhabad, a prema popisu iz 2014. Godine ova država je imala nešto više od pet miliona stanovnika. Pročitajte u nastavku teksta neke od zanimljivih činjenica o Turkmenistanu. Naziv Turkmenistan vodi poreklo iz persijskog jezika, a njegovo značenje je jednostavno: Zemlja naroda Turkmena.

Adjustments included ending bans such as those on ballet and opera, reversing Niyazov’s decree renaming the days of the week and months of the year after himself and members of his family, and ordering that the Neutrality Arch, with its large gold effigy, be moved from the capital’s centre to its southern reaches. Berdymukhammedov was elected to a second five-year term as president in February 2012, although the ballot was generally regarded as fraudulent.

In December 2012 Turkmenistan held a parliamentary election that was billed as the first to feature multiple political parties. In reality, the political process remained under the government’s tight control.

Only parties with official recognition participated in the election, and individual candidates were carefully screened to ensure their loyalty to Berdymukhammedov. In February 2016 a commission headed by Berdymukhammedov drafted to the constitution that would increase the length of a presidential term from five to seven years and remove the upper age limit on the president, which had been set at 70. Observers generally saw the amendments, which went into effect just months before the presidential election scheduled for February 2017, as further evidence that Berdymukhammedov intended to hold the presidency for life.

As expected, Berdymukhammedov won a seven-year term in 2017 with 98 percent of the vote.

Copyright © Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1999 First published 1999 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1 Blackwell Publishers Ltd 108 Cowley Road Oxford OX4 1JF UK Blackwell Publishers Inc. 350 Main Street Malden, Massachusetts 02148 USA All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-PublicationData A dictionary of archaeology / edited by Ian Shaw and Robert Jameson.

Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0–631–17423–0(alk. Shaw, Ian, 1961–.

Jameson, Robert. CC70.D53 1999 930.1'03—dc CIP. Figures 1 Abu Ghurob Plan and reconstruction drawing of the sun temple of Nyuserra at Abu Ghurob, Egypt. Stevenson Smith: The art and architecture of ancient Egypt, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth: Pelican, 1981), figs 124, 125. 2 Abydos Schematic plan of the area of late Gerzean settlement excavated by Eric Peet at Abydos, Egypt. Hoffman: Egypt before the pharaohs (London: Ark, 1980), fig. Kazahskie padezhi i ih okonchanie.

Yummy bingham the first seed zip. 3 Altyn-depe Plan of the mound at Altyn-depe,Southern Turkmenistan, showing the main features of the Eneolithic–BronzeAge settlement. Masson: Altyn-depe:Raskopki goroda bronzovogo veka v Juzhnom Turkmenistane (Leningrad, 1991). 4 An-yang (A) Plan of typical royal burials (M1129, M1400 and M1422) at Hsi-pei-kang,Anyang, with long ramps leading down to the tombs, and numerous single and multiple burials arranged alongside; (B) structural model of the An-yangurban network during the Shang period, based on archaeological foci.