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Perhaps the most famous of all the places in Central Asia is Samarkand. "Surrounded by a halo of romance," Mr. Schuyler writes, "visited at rare intervals, and preserving the traditions of its magnificence in a mysterious impenetrability, it long piqued the curiosity of the world." It came into history as Maracanda, the capital of Sogdrane, when it was conquered by Alexander the Great. Then it was a large and flourishing city.
There Alexander killed his old friend and comrade Clytus in a fit of drunken passion; and it was his head-quarters during his contests with the mountain tribes, and the expedition against the Scythians across the Syr Darya. Quintus Curtius says that its walls were seventy stadia in circumference, and that the citadel was then as now surrounded by another wall.
Its most famous and most interesting monument is the Gur' Amir or tomb of Timur, of which we have this description: It is situated on a slight hill to the south of the fortress, and is an eight-sided building, surmounted by a melon-shaped dome, and with two ruined minarets. Passing through a broken mosaic portal and a court, we come to the steps leading into the mosque. Over the gates is an inscription in Persian: "The weak slave Mohammed, son of Mahmoud, from Isfahan, built this."
The inside of the dome is full of the usual alabaster work, and the walls are covered with hexagonal plates closely set together of fine carved transparent gypsum, which is often supposed to be jasper. On the side turned to Mecca there is a pillar, and a large ancient standard with floating horse-tail.
The tombstone of Timur occupies the exact center of the mosque, and is a slab of greenish black stone, six feet long, fifteen inches wide, and about fourteen inches thick, which is flat on the top and not pyramidal, as has been represented. It has been broken or cut in the middle into two parts, and one of the lower corners has been broken off and subsequently polished down, as is shown by a part of the inscription being missing.
Around the edge is a very complicated inscription in antique letters, giving Timur's name and titles, together with those of all his ancestors, and the date of his death, 807 (1405). To the right of this slab is another of gray marble, of nearly the same size, with an inscription showing that it is the tomb of Mirza Ulug Bek, grandson of Timur, who died in 853 (1405). The back and part of the top are covered with plaster. On the other side of Timur's tomb is a gray marble slab in memory of Abdullatif Mirza, son of Ulug Bek, who died in 854 (1450). There are slabs to three other sons of Ulug Bek; and beside these, between the tomb of Timur and the standard, is a gray marble slab dedicated to Mir Seid Belki Sheikh, the teacher of Timur, who died two years after him.
The walls of the mosque are covered with various inscriptions, some texts from the Koran, and others religious verses; while in the adjoining room was one which Mr. Schuyler's mullah translated as meaning, "If I were alive, people would not be glad," without date or name. Passing into this room on the left of the main mosque, the traveler went down a narrow staircase into the vault below, and found the tombs of Timur and his descendants placed exactly under the slabs above. The tombs are beneath the ground, and nothing is visible but slabs of gray marble covered with complicated inscriptions. The vault itself, which is of a very wide span, is of light gray burnt brick, and is still in a perfect state, being a beautiful piece of workmanship.
This mosque, and even the tombs, were found in a very dilapidated condition by the Russians on their occupation, and it is owing to them that repairs have been made and everything put in order, and a guardian appointed to the mosque. The beautiful carved stone railing which surrounds the monument in the upper room was found badly shattered, but has now been completely restored. In a small building near by are the tombs of Timur's wives.
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The tomb of Timur
Vambery - England in the Orient
Foreign retirees in Manchuria
An early traveler in Egypt
First Japanese Buddhist Temple in America
Waiting in Ulaan Baatar
Japanese priest crosses desert to Tibet
Central Asia after the battle at Penjdeh
Underground City near Bokhara
Central Asia
Bokhara
