Excavations suggest that it was built as a Uyghur palace in the 8th century AD, converted into a Manichaean monastery soon after, abandoned after a short occupation, and finally destroyed by an earthquake and subsequent fire.

Por-Bazhyn occupies a small island in Lake Tere-Khol, about 1,300 m (4,300 ft) above sea level in the Sengelen mountains of southern Siberia.

[4] Moyanchur involved the Uyghur Khaganate in internal power struggles in China, and married a Chinese princess.

In the late Middle Ages, another catastrophic earthquake led to fires and to the collapse of the southern and eastern enclosure walls and of the northwestern corner bastion.

[7] The outer wall of the enclosure was built using the Chinese hangtu technique (rammed-earth layers in a wooden frame) and was originally 11 m (36 ft) high.

The two buildings of the central structure, one behind the other, stood on square platforms which had been built up of clay layers and faced with bricks which were coated with lime plaster.

[9] The decorative eave end-tiles recovered from the site are broadly analogous to those found in Tang contexts, however recent studies indicate they form part of a distinctive Uyghur stylistic typology.

[11] The excavators point out that this was in the reign of Uyghur Bögü Qaghan, successor of Moyanchur, therefore Por-Bazhyn cannot have been the palace mentioned in the Selenga inscription.

The native Tuvinian Sergey Shoygu, then Minister for Emergencies of the Russian Federation, was chairman of the Por-Bazhyn Fortress Foundation which provided the funding for the fieldwork.

In August 2007, he visited the excavations together with Vladimir Putin, then Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, and Albert II, Prince of Monaco.