Widely known across the Orient, the medieval city of Otrar stands at the point where several branches of the Great Silk Road crossed this region from 3rd century B.C. on. It became famous as a birth place of Abu Nasr al-Farabi, an outstanding encyclopedic scientist. Otrar was a large political, economic, cultural and trade centre which played an important role in the history of Central Asia. In the 6-8th centuries Otrar-Farab was the capital of a big early feudal domain in the middle confluence of the Syrdaria. In the 9th-12th centuries Otrar became the principal town of the region. In the 13th-15th centuries it was one of the biggest towns of South Kazakhstan and in the 16th-18th centuries it was the political and economic centre of the Kazakh Kaganate.
According to the sources the inhabitants of Otrar moved to Turkestan, Shymkent, and Shilik. By the 18th century Otrar had become desolate and it lay in ruins turning into a rain-eroded mound which the local inhabitants called Otrartobe. The first topographical plan of Otrar was completed in 1903. In 1904, A.A.Cherkasov and A.K.Klare, members of the Turkestan Society of Amateur Archaeologists, carried out the first archaeological excavations. Large scaled excavations here took place in 1969, especially in 1971. Expeditions were headed by the first Kazakh archaeologist Kemal Akyshev. As a result medieval Otrar became an archaeological centre of Kazakhstan and Central Asia.