Share in the thrill of excavating a long-lost temple and uncovering some of Central Asia’s oldest wall paintings as a volunteer on the University of Sydney excavations in Uzbekistan. Follow this up with a magnificent ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ tour of the Silk Road Cities of Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. Beyond the oases of the Silk Road lie the remains of even older cities, fortresses whose walls were standing in the time of Alexander the Great. These citadels, long lost under the desert sands, lie in the land once known as Chorasmia at the western end of Uzbekistan, where the Amu-Dariya river spreads into a delta before draining into the Aral Sea. In 2010 we will be working at the temple/palace within the ancient walled city of Kazakl'i-yatkan. The Kazakl'i-yatkan temple / palace has produced an amazingly rich collection of vibrantly colored ancient murals, as well as painted plaster statuary and stucco decorated with gold leaf. The temple is associated with a fire cult, probably a form of Zoroastrianism.