Samarkand

City in east-central Uzbekistan that is one of the oldest cities of Central Asia. In the 4th century BC, then known as Maracanda, it was the capital of Sogdiana and was captured (329 BC) by Alexander the Great. It benefited from its location in a fertile oasis at the point where the Silk Route from the West divided, one branch proceeding to China and other to India. Excavations have revealed abundant Graeco-Sogdiana material. A palace of the 6th or 7th century AD yielded wall paintings comparable with the famous paintings from Pendzhikent.

Before the MdWgol conquest, Samarkand occupied the site known as Afrasiab, outside the modem city in Soviet Central Asia. Both the old and the new sites benefited from their situation in a fertile oasis at the point where the Silk Route from the West divided, one branch proceeding to China and the other to India. Afrasiab was already the Soghdian capital when Alexander the Great invaded the region in 329 bc, and excavations have revealed abundant Graeco-Soghdian material. A palace of the 6th or 7th century ad, discovered in 1912, yielded wall paintings comparable with the famous paintings from Pendzhikent. The Mongol leader Chingiz-Khan destroyed the water supply and the population moved to the modern site in 1220. In 1375 Samarkand became the capital of Timur [Tamerlane] and in 1403 Clavijo described it as a cosmopolitan city with 150,000 inhabitants. The principal monuments of Samarkand are Timurid. They include the cemetery known as Shah-i Zindeh, a group of mausolea for the families of Timur (d. 1405) and Ulugh-Beg (1409-49), built round the Mosque of Kussan. They are noted for their rich tile ornament. Elsewhere in the city, the Mosque of Bibi Khanum, now ruined, was seen under construction by Clavijo. At about the same time, Timur erected the Gur Emir mausoleum (in which he was buried) in the madrasa of Muhammad Sultan.