Samarkand. Pearl of the East. City of Famous Shadows.
Like Timbuktu and Kathmandu, the name Samarkand evokes a sense of grandeur and danger, of gold-laden caravans traversing waves of rippled sand dunes. Of an emerald oasis city, whose hanging vines and towering trees shaded storehouses of goods. Cinnamon bark from India. Honey and furs from Russia. Acrobats, tortoise shells and silk from China. To step foot in Samarkand was to step foot in every city along the Silk Road.
Samarkand’s inhabitants, the Sogdians, were well known for their skills in farming, trade, and craftsmanship. But like many ancient cities and the people who inhabited them, its 2700-year history is replete with fortune and fame, devastation and destruction.
Located in modern day Uzbekistan, Samarkand was settled by an ancient Iranian people between the 8th and 7th centuries BC. When Cyrus the Great died in 530 BC, much of Central Asia, including Sogdiana and its capital city, Samarkand, had been incorporated into the Persian/Achaemenid Empire.
In 329 BC, Samarkand found itself in Alexander the Great’s crosshairs as he swept through Central Asia, expanding his empire to the east. After his death, rulership of Samarkand would be passed from the Greek Seleucid’s to the Persian Sassanians, and down through a long line of Turkic leaders, until the rise of Islam and subsequent Arab conquest in 710 AD.
When Genghis Khan and his Mongol army invaded Samarkand in 1220 AD, the city was destroyed, and the population decimated. But in 1370, Timur the Great (Tamerlane) chose Samarkand as his capital city. Using slave labor from the skilled builders and architects he had captured in earlier conquests, the city was rebuilt with the minarets, archways, turquoise domes, and colorful tiled buildings indicative of Samarkand today.
From here we’ll narrow our focus to 634 AD, the timeframe for The Weaver’s Tapestry. Join me as we set our feet in the dust of ancient Samarkand and take a look around. I’ll introduce you to this majestic city through the sights, sounds, and flavors of its time.
Our first stop: Caravanserai.