Research under­tak­en at the end of the 1970s and begin­ning of the 1980s by the Insti­tute of His­to­ry of the Kyr­gyz Acad­e­my of Sci­ences con­clud­ed that Tash Rabat was orig­i­nal­ly built as a Nesto­ri­an monastery in the 10th cen­tu­ry, although no Chris­t­ian arti­facts were found dur­ing exca­va­tions. Lat­er it was deter­mined to be a Bud­dhist monastery as all inscrip­tions, arti­facts and ref­er­ences were found to be Bud­dhist in nature. This was fur­ther sup­port­ed by the fact that its inhab­i­tants were Bud­dhist dur­ing the peri­od of its con­struc­tion. The struc­ture con­sists of 31 rooms, includ­ing cham­bers in the cen­tral hall. The rooms are square and topped with domes which have open­ings for light at the top; tran­si­tion from a quad­ran­gu­lar frame to a dome is done using a squinch. Tash Rabat is com­plete­ly made of rub­ble stone on clay mor­tar with gyp­sum mor­tar seal­ing joints. One of the fur­thest rooms also has a deep hole in the floor that reminds a well.