City guide · Samarqand

Samarkand

The blue capital of the Timurid Empire: Registan and Gur-e-Amir

Photo: Bernard Gagnon · CC0

Samarkand is one of the most famous cities of the Silk Road. The blue tiles of the three madrasas on Registan Square, the lane of mausoleums at Shah-i-Zinda and Gur-e-Amir, where Timur lies, make up the most magnificent ensemble of Islamic architecture in Central Asia.

History

How the city came to be

In 329 BC Alexander the Great captured the city, then called Maracanda. In 1220 the Mongol army of Genghis Khan took Samarkand and devastated it. In the 14th century Timur made Samarkand the capital of his empire, and it became a centre of Islamic learning and the birthplace of the 'Timurid Renaissance'. His grandson Ulugh Beg built the first madrasa on Registan Square between 1417 and 1420, and an observatory between 1424 and 1429. In 2001 Samarkand was inscribed on the World Heritage List as a 'Crossroads of Cultures'.

329 BCAlexander the Great captured Maracanda
1220Genghis Khan captured Samarkand
Around 1370Timur made it the capital of his empire
1417–1420The Ulugh Beg Madrasa was completed
1424–1429The Ulugh Beg Observatory was built
2001Inscribed as a World Heritage Site

Stories

Stories of the city

Legend · Uzbek plov

Did Alexander bring plov?

Folk stories say Alexander the Great brought pilaf to the ancient Sogdian city of Samarkand, while others say his soldiers took the Bactrian and Sogdian way of making pilaf back to Macedonia. The archaeologist John Boardman considers all these stories later embellishments.

History · Gur-e-Amir, Samarkand

A tomb built for a grandson became the resting place of three generations

In 1403 Timur's heir and favourite grandson, Muhammad Sultan, died suddenly, and Timur ordered a mausoleum built for him. Two years later Timur himself was buried here, and later his sons Shah Rukh and Miran Shah and his grandson Ulugh Beg were buried here too. During his reign Ulugh Beg placed a single block of dark-green jade on his grandfather's tomb.

Legend · Gur-e-Amir, Samarkand

Timur's curse

On 19 June 1941 the Soviet anthropologist Mikhail Gerasimov opened Timur's tomb to study his remains and reconstructed his face from the skull. Legend says the coffin bore the inscription: 'Whoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I.' People around Gerasimov said this was a made-up story, but by coincidence, three days after the tomb was opened, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

History · Registan Square, Samarkand

The astronomer king's madrasa

Between 1417 and 1420 Timur's grandson Ulugh Beg built a madrasa on the Registan, inviting astronomers and mathematicians from across the Islamic world to teach there; between 1424 and 1429 he built an observatory and compiled a star catalogue. Devoted to learning and neglectful of government, he was overthrown and killed by his son Abdal-Latif in 1449. The square's other two madrasas were built two centuries later, in the 17th century.

People