Located at approximately 100 kilometers  (3 hours by four-wheel drive) from Mary City is the area we call Margush, and its center at GonurDepe . In 1972 a famous Russian-Greek archeologist, Professor Viktor Sarianidi, made a marvelous discovery: he found the long lost capital of the Bronze Age center of Margush country whose people inhabited dozens of settlements around the old delta oasis of the Murghab River. Arguably, what he found was the center of a fifth great ancient civilization, next to China, India, Mesopotamia and Egypt.

 Archeological discoveries confirmed that people in Margush country worshipped water and fire, as did the people in neighboring Bactria (northern Afghanistan). According to professor Sarianidi, Gonur was the birthplace of the first monotheistic religion - Zoroastrianism, and its founder Zoroaster (Zarathustra) was said to have housed here.

At its ritual center at GonurDepe we can observe the remains of various ritual complexes, and a huge necropolis. The remains, when found in 1972, had been kept in extremely good shape, as the dry desert climatic conditions and four millennia of sand cover had given it proper protection from decay. The History Museum in Mary and the National Museum in Ashgabat have an impressive display of items found in the area.