Samarkand – Timur's Royal Capital City

Uzbekistan's Cultural Masterpiece and UNESCO World Heritage Site

Oct 25, 2009

Samarkand, a UNESCO World Heritage Site is a hugely important historical site standing proudly on the ancient Silk Route in what is now modern Uzbekistan.

To add some geographical context for those readers who may be unfamiliar with the city, Samarkand is located in the Zerafshan River basin in Uzbekistan, a former Soviet Republic. The country is bordered to the north by Kazakhstan, with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, Turkmenistan lies to the west and troubled Afghanistan to the south.

The Golden Road to Samarkand

It’s a city, immortalised by the poetic words of James Elroy Flecker in The Golden Road to Samarkand, which grew from humble origins in the 7th century B.C.E. into the cultural melting pot that stands today.

In a long and often bloody history, life in Samarkand was punctuated with ‘visits’ from Alexander the Great and Chingiz Khan (Genghis Khan) to name only two.

Timur's Capital City

It’s impossible not to select the period dominated by Timur (Tamerlane), who, during the 1370s, pushed out the Mongols and made Samarkand his capital, as the start of the city’s real and prosperous development.

Silk Road

Writer Wilfred Blunt described Samarkand during this period as, “One of the most glorious capitals in the then-known world… a thriving city which netted half the commerce of Asia.” Blunt's description of the flourishing street markets certainly reinforced his portrayal of the city’s business credentials. For amongst the abundance of stalls were leather, linen, spices, silk, precious stones and exotic fruit, merchandise delivered by the caravans that traversed the Silk Road

Cambridge University scholar Mark Dickens makes an interesting comparison between the empires of Chingiz Khan and Timur after their deaths. He writes, “The empire that Timur had built could not be kept together by his descendants, none of whom shared the same iron will that he possessed. As had happened with Chingiz Khan’s empire, factions soon developed…”

Despite the loss of much of the territory, Dickens argues that Timur’s successors, “Went on to usher in the Muslim equivalent of the European Renaissance, centred in the cities of Samarkand and Herat (modern Afghanistan).

As Timurid authority faded the city faced a succession of transient rulers of varying ethnicity, including Persians, Turks and Chinese. The Russians arrived in 1868, finally departing in 1991 when the country gained its independence.

Architecture of Samarkand

UNESCO, which describes the architecture of Samarkand as, “Masterpieces of Islamic cultural creativity” designated the city a World Heritage Site in December 2001.

Much of that cultural splendour which remains today offers the visitor some spectacular examples of stunning Islamic architecture. For example:

Sources:

Professor Daniel C Waugh, Silk Road Seattle, University of Washington, site accessed 25 October 2009

Mark Dickens, Oxus Communications, Timurid Architecture in Samarkand, website www.oxuscom.com accessed 25 October 2009

The copyright of the article Samarkand – Timur's Royal Capital City in Middle Eastern History is owned by Neil Gunn. Permission to republish Samarkand – Timur's Royal Capital City in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.