A back story on fragments of terracotta slabs featuring an elephant discovered at Novaya Nisa

This issue has a long history, around eighty years. Three generations of Novaya Nisa researchers - A. A. Marushchenko (1936), members of the YuTAKE (the South Turkmenistan Archaeological Expedition) (1948-1949) and members of the Nisa Expedition (2013-2018) - have been involved in its research. In 1949 a fragment of a terracotta slab featuring two warriors emerging from behind a large rectangular object was found in the northeastern excavation pit at Novaya Nisa. The correct interpretation of this narrative was proposed by M. I. Vyazmitina back in the early 1950s, but her manuscript has not been found in the Tashkent archives until recently. The slab depicts a war elephant. The paper also provides some general information on Novaya Nisa and on how M. I. Vyazmitina’s manuscript was discovered.