Nepal
Mustang – 2023

Survey of the Kya Kye Gang site
The initial objective of the 2023 campaign was to carry out a detailed study of the Kya Kye Gang site located 1.5 km east of Lo-Monthang (the administrative headquarters of Upper Mustang). The site is mentioned in written sources as having been inhabited by a noble family from Lo in the 15th century. Part of this family, notably Khro bo ‘bum, settled in the Muktinath valley in the 16th century, controlling part of Lower Mustang. The 2.55h site features large-scale mud buildings and chortens (Buddhist cult monuments), as well as stone masonry structures possibly dating from an earlier phase of occupation. Topographical and architectural documentation was carried out on the site’s four main zones, which were divided according to the type of structures, their concentration and the site’s topography. A complementary study of 500 ceramic shards collected from different parts of the site revealed typologies and shaping techniques dating from the 10th to 15th centuries AD, with possible comparisons with other trans-Himalayan regions, such as Ladakh, Spiti and Lower Mustang.

Archaeological surveys in Lower Mustang
The second part of the campaign was devoted to systematic surveys in the Lower Mustang region. Seventeen archaeological sites in a variety of archaeological contexts were documented: defensive, religious, petroglyphs, ceramic spreading areas, caves and burials. This documentation was combined with a systematic collection of ceramics to create a new reference collection for the Lower Mustang region, complementing the ceramic data published by Nepalese-German teams in the 1990s. This collection has also been enriched by new studies carried out on ceramics from the Chokhopani sepulchral caves excavated in 1992 and currently housed in the Eco Museum in Jomsom. These surveys brought to light previously unpublished sites, such as the Syang petroglyphs, as well as building up a corpus of over 900 ceramic shards.