Samarkand, Uzbekistan

My movement along the Silk Road has led me eastward and also forward in time. The ruins in ancient Merv, in Turkmenistan, dated from 600 BCE, and I keep lurching on through the centuries as I go.  In Uzbekistan, Khiva’s walls are 10^th C CE, and Bukhara was a center of power from the 10^th century onward.  Samarkand represents the flourishing of another empire, the one led by 14^th-century Amir Timur, or, as Christopher Marlowe called him, Tamburlane. 

I suppose it’s not a new thing for a ruler to flex his power through the metaphor of his construction projects.  Timur wanted his city’s physical statement to be unarguable. The structure he built to honor his favorite wife, the Bibi-Khanym Mosque, had minarets that stood 75 meters high before an earthquake toppled them; the beautifully tiled portal is 35 meters high (the scale is kinda hard to convey in photos): 

Timur’s body lies in another enormous mausoleum he designed for his favorite grandson.  Note that the dome is ribbed—this feature is an innovation of Timur’s architects, and accordingly its style is called the Samarkand Dome. 

 

At the heart of the city is Registon Square, where three enormous madrassas (15^th-17^th C) face one another.  This photo tries to give a sense of scale, but the square was being prepared for an international dance festival so my photos are cluttered with scaffolding and stagestuff. 

My favorite of the three madrassas is the western one--the left one--, about which more next time.