above: Guri Emir Mausoleum, Samarkand, 1405. Under the fluted azure dome are the jade and onyx crypts and tombs of Amir Timur, two sons and two grandsons, including Uleg Beg. There is a debate, both international and local about the degree of restoration ap- propriate to such buildings: should they be kept in their current but authentic state of disrepair, or should they be repaired to look new. The Soviets opted to restore and repair. World archaeologists now promote a slowing down of that process, opting for the mothballing and protection of ancient treasures on site. right: 1417, 1620, 1650AD. Three Madrassahs form the celebrated Registan Complex and Maydoni, Samarakand. With stunning ma- jolica, azure mosaics and vast, well-proportioned spaces, the Maydoni was once a wall-to-wall bazaar. History is alive when local sites be- come more than pristine museums. In Samarkand today, local people wish to occupy and use the spaces in and around famous sites. In- ternational concerns then become ‘security-of-treasures’ and ‘how to manage and repair as a result of daily wear and tear’. The continual and on-going reprogramming of these sites through the ages offers expanding information and richness to all users and visitors.
Samarkand Today Samarkand is an archive of its imperial pasts. There are
multi-national petroleum companies, and replacement public sculpture dedicated to the pre-Russian past representing post-Soviet unfettered capitalism and heroic nationalism (1993 – now). By 100BC the Silk Road, linking Europe to Asia, was pretty much established. Cultural conversions and conversations moved quickly along that road – around the same time the Chinese Kushan dynasty converted to Buddhism. The peoples of the Silk Road worshipped a mix of Greek, Roman, Buddhist, Iranian and Hindu deities; this mix continues – in Samarkand today some people live as they might have the fifteenth century. Others sport iPods, buy Guess-designer clothing and drink mocha lattes. Samarkand exhibits the great mix of Europe and Asia, past and present. It also impressively presents people and places that profoundly and proudly showcase European and Asian linguistic, music, fashion and food distinctions. All this contrast can be easily and precisely observed at the boundary that separates extant old Samarkand from new Samarkand. ~
archaeological sites with exposed parts of the original Arks [fortress walls] destroyed by Alexander the Great in 329BC, by Atilla the Hun in the fourth century AD, by Ghengis Khan and his Mongol horde in 1220 and by his grandson Kublai Khan in 1250. There are historic and sumptuous UNESCO-protected buildings (Zoroastrian and, after the seventh century, Islamic) commissioned by, for example, the Samini tribe (ninth century), by Amir Timur, the greatest builder in Samarkand (1369-1408), by Uleg Beg, ruler, scholar, mathematician and astronomer (1410-1450) and by the feuding Khanates from Kokhand, Bukhara and Khiva of the 1800s. There are the adjacent broad streets, immense plazas and monumental buildings parachuted into Samarkand by the Russian empire (1873-1917). There are immense and brutal concrete apartments, offices and bureaus constructed under Lenin, Stalin, Khruschev and later Soviet presidents (1917-1993). Finally there are contemporary steel /glass hotels and offices to accommodate global tourism and
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archives and museums: On Site review 20
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