Samarkand in five places

The extraordinary Silk Road city in Uzbekistan, once capital of Timur's great empire, boasts an array of astonishing monuments. BRADLEY MAYHEW picks places that showcase a dazzling history

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1 Afrosiab

First site

Centuries before Samarkand’s stately mosques, mausoleums and madrassas (Islamic schools) were built, a trading hub arose on what became known as the Silk Road. The site of the first ancient settlement, Afrosiab, lies just northeast of the modern centre.

Inhabited by 500 BC, the city first known as Marakanda was a major centre of the Sogdian civilisation. Taken by Alexander the Great in 329 BC, it changed hands many times more, including conquest by Arab Muslims in the eighth century. Then, in 1220, it was pulverised by Genghis Khan's Mongol army.

There's not much to see now beyond a few mud-walled ruins, but palace murals excavated from the site are displayed in the adjacent Afrosiab Museum — and they're astonishing. They depict the Sogdian king Varkhuman, flanked by ambassadors from China, Korea, Tibet and the Pamir Mountains. Featuring processions of elephants, hunting leopards and portraits of the Chinese Tang emperor, these huge, beautiful murals showcase Sogdian splendour at its zenith. Some were displayed in the recent British Museum Silk Roads exhibition.

2 Bibi Khanum Mosque

Overreaching ambition

In the second half of the 14th century, Samarkand was the capital of Timur, widely known in the west as Tamerlane, a man of Turco-Mongol descent born nearby in 1336. Through long campaigns he conquered almost all inner Asia and the Middle East, creating one of the largest empires the world has seen.