In 2026, with support from the Almaty city administration, the Almaty Museums Association carried out emergency excavations at a Saka-period burial mound at the Karagaily burial site in Nauryzbai District. The team found a gold object and numerous human remains.
The mound is 25–26 metres in diameter and about 2.5 metres high. A preliminary assessment dates it to the 4th–3rd centuries BCE. It was looted in ancient times, leaving a robbery pit three metres deep.
The mound may have contained the burials of four adults and three children, but the exact number of people buried there has not been established. Archaeologists also found fragments of Saka pottery. Many artefacts had been scattered after the ancient looting.
