The Kyrgyz dalek project was plagued by the opposite error to Spiñal Tap's

[fivemack]

This is actually the Burana Tower, which is the bottom half of the giant minaret of the now-vanished giant mosque of the now-vanished late-ninth-century Karakhanid city of Balasagan. The Karakhanids have also now vanished.

You can climb it by a spectacularly claustrophobic staircase

Comments

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

How does an entire city manage to disappear leaving empty plains, without this tower also disappearing?

[fivemack.livejournal.com]

The city didn't quite leave empty plains; the yellow ridge in the grass visible just above the base of the monument traces the mud-brick walls, and there is one mighty-civic-building-shaped chunk of weathered mud-brick still reasonably visible from the top of the tower:



Soviet archaeologists rebuilt the tower thoroughly in 1974; before restoration it looked rather like one of Obelix's menhirs (see picture at bottom of http://www.topasia.kg/en/kyrgyzstan/history).

I can't find details of what happened to the city; apparently it survived the Mongols and then dropped out of use in the 15th century.