Chemical analysis of pottery shards found at a ritual site near Samarkand has detected traces of specialized pomegranate-based wine and charcoal from massive controlled bonfires. Researchers from the Institute of Archaeology in Uzbekistan believe this site was used for the ancient Iranian festival of Sadeh, which honors fire and the defeat of darkness during the midwinter months.
The scale of the ash pits suggests that the fires were visible for miles, serving as a communal beacon for nearby settlements to gather for ritual drinking and storytelling. This discovery pushes back the physical evidence for Sadeh ceremonies by several centuries, linking the festival to early pastoralist societies in the Central Asian steppe.