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Category: Asia and the Orient

Asia

Cholpon-Ata Petroglyphs: Rock Art and Ritual Landscapes beside Issyk-Kul

An illustrative view of a slope scattered with dark granite boulders above a deep blue lake with snow-capped mountains beyond, evoking the petroglyph field at Cholpon-Ata on Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyzstan.

Cholpon-Ata Petroglyphs: Rock Art and Ritual Landscapes beside Issyk-Kul What did the people who herded and hunted around Issyk-Kul three thousand years ago think worth recording, and where did they choose to record it? On the northern shore of the lake in Kyrgyzstan, the answer lies scattered across a slope of dark granite boulders above […]

Kolsai Lakes: Alpine Water, Forests and the Northern Tien Shan

An illustrative view of a deep blue-green lake in a steep valley lined with narrow, spire-shaped spruce, evoking the Kolsai lakes in the northern Tien Shan, Kazakhstan.

Kolsai Lakes: Alpine Water, Forests and the Northern Tien Shan What holds a lake in place halfway up a mountain? At the Kolsai lakes in southeastern Kazakhstan, the answer is the mountain itself: each lake sits behind a barrier of rock and debris that once came down the valley sides and blocked the Kolsai River, […]

Singing Dunes of Kazakhstan: Sand, Sound and the Landscape of Altyn-Emel

An illustrative view of a great pale sand dune lying between two dark stony ridges on a saxaul-dotted plain, evoking the Singing Dune of Altyn-Emel National Park, Kazakhstan.

Singing Dunes of Kazakhstan: Sand, Sound and the Landscape of Altyn-Emel How can a hill of sand make music? Travellers have puzzled over the sounds of the desert for at least seven centuries, from Marco Polo in the Desert of Lop to Charles Darwin in the north of Chile, and the singing dunes of Kazakhstan […]

Altyn-Emel National Park: Petroglyphs, Desert Mountains and the Ili River Corridor

An illustrative view of a semi-desert plain with saxaul shrubs, bare ochre mountains and a tree-lined river valley, evoking Altyn-Emel National Park above the Ili River, Kazakhstan.

Altyn-Emel National Park: Petroglyphs, Desert Mountains and the Ili River Corridor Why would a stretch of dry, bare mountains and sand on the north bank of a Central Asian river hold rock carvings from the Bronze Age, burial mounds of steppe elites, standing stones wrapped in legends of Chinggis Khan and, just beyond its edge, […]

Son-Kul Lake: Pastoral Life, Yurts and the High Mountain World of Kyrgyzstan

An illustrative view of white felt yurts beside a wide high mountain lake ringed by treeless ridges, evoking Son-Kul lake in Kyrgyzstan.

Son-Kul Lake: Pastoral Life, Yurts and the High Mountain World of Kyrgyzstan How do people and animals live at 3,000 metres, where snow lies for half the year and summer lasts a few short months? On the high grasslands around Son-Kul Lake in central Kyrgyzstan, the answer has long been movement: herders bring their flocks […]

Turkmen Carpets: Weaving, Pattern and Cultural Identity across Central Asia

An illustrative deep red hand-knotted wool carpet with rows of octagonal gul medallions, in the style of Turkmen carpets from Central Asia.

Turkmen Carpets: Weaving, Pattern and Cultural Identity across Central Asia What can a carpet tell you that a chronicle cannot? For the herding peoples of Central Asia who moved with their flocks, woven wool was the place where household life, tribal identity and a sense of beauty were all set down. Turkmen carpets are the […]

Merv, Turkmenistan: Oasis Water, Empire and the Archaeology of a Lost City

An illustrative view of a large cube-shaped brick mausoleum with a dome rising above eroded city ramparts on a desert plain, evoking ancient Merv, Turkmenistan.

Merv, Turkmenistan: Oasis Water, Empire and the Archaeology of a Lost City Why would a great city move? At Merv, in the Karakum Desert of southeastern Turkmenistan, it did so again and again: a walled Achaemenid fortress, a square Hellenistic town beside it, a vast Seljuk capital to the west, and a smaller Timurid city […]

Nisa, Turkmenistan: The Parthian Royal Fortresses and Central Asian Empire

An illustrative view of a heavily eroded earthen citadel mound on a steppe plain below bare mountains, evoking Old Nisa at the foot of the Kopet Dag, Turkmenistan.

Nisa, Turkmenistan: The Parthian Royal Fortresses and Central Asian Empire How did a band of steppe horsemen become the rulers of an empire that stretched from the Euphrates to the Indus and held Rome at bay for centuries? Part of the answer lies in two eroded earthen mounds at the foot of the Kopet Dag […]

Koneurgench: Khorezmian Architecture and a Medieval Capital in Turkmenistan

An illustrative view of a tall tapering brick minaret and a small conical-roofed tomb on a flat desert plain, evoking Koneurgench in northern Turkmenistan.

Koneurgench: Khorezmian Architecture and a Medieval Capital in Turkmenistan On a flat plain on the left bank of the Amu Darya, a brick minaret about 60 metres tall rises above a scattering of domed tombs, mud-brick mounds and graves. This is Koneurgench, also written Konye-Urgench or Kunya-Urgench and known in the Middle Ages as Gurganj, […]

Khorezm Fortresses: Desert Archaeology between the Amu Darya and the Silk Road

An illustrative eroded mud-brick fort with rounded towers on a bare hill above a flat scrub plain, evoking the hilltop forts of ancient Khorezm in Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan.

Khorezm Fortresses: Desert Archaeology between the Amu Darya and the Silk Road On the right bank of the lower Amu Darya, where irrigated fields give way to the red sands of the Kyzylkum, the ruins of walled towns and hilltop castles stand above the plain like weathered sandcastles. The Khorezm fortresses were built of mud […]

Muynak, Uzbekistan: Port Memory and the Aral Sea’s Receding Shoreline

Several rusting fishing trawlers resting on a flat, sandy former seabed with sparse desert scrub under a wide pale sky, an illustrative scene of the kind of ship cemetery found at Muynak, Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan.

Muynak, Uzbekistan: Port Memory and the Aral Sea’s Receding Shoreline On the northern edge of Karakalpakstan, a handful of rusting fishing boats rest on sand that was once the floor of the Aral Sea. They belong to Muynak, Uzbekistan, a town that was organised around a harbour, a fishing fleet and a cannery, and that […]

Ashgabat: White Marble Urbanism, Neutrality and the Making of a Modern Capital

A deserted boulevard lined with white marble-clad buildings, gilded domes and fountains beneath bare mountains, illustrating the style of central Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

Ashgabat: White Marble Urbanism, Neutrality and the Making of a Modern Capital Ashgabat announces its intentions plainly. Between the bare ridges of the Kopet Dag and the edge of the Karakum Desert, avenue after avenue of white marble towers, gilded domes and long lines of fountains presents a city designed to be looked at, a […]

Central Asia Tour: A Four-Country Journey through the Stans

A gravel track crossing dry golden steppe toward snow-capped mountains, an illustrative Central Asian landscape between the desert and the Tian Shan.

Central Asia Tour: A Four-Country Journey through the Stans A Central Asia tour that takes in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in one journey is, more than anything, a lesson in water. It begins beside the shrunken Aral Sea, follows the Amu Darya to Khorezm, then crosses the Karakum to the oasis capitals of Parthia […]

Savitsky Museum: Russian Avant-Garde Art and Cultural Memory in Nukus

An empty, quiet painting gallery with framed canvases seen at an angle under a skylight, an illustrative scene evoking the Savitsky Museum in Nukus, Karakalpakstan, Uzbekistan.

Savitsky Museum: Russian Avant-Garde Art and Cultural Memory in Nukus Nukus is not where anyone expects to find a major collection of twentieth-century painting. The capital of Karakalpakstan, the autonomous republic that fills Uzbekistan’s north-western corner, sits on the flat lands of the lower Amu Darya, a long way from Moscow, Leningrad or Tashkent. Yet […]

Khiva and the Silk Road: A Walled Oasis City on the Amu Darya

Crenellated mud-brick walls and rounded bastions at golden hour, with tiled domes and minarets behind, in the style of Ichan Kala in Khiva, Uzbekistan.

Khiva and the Silk Road: A Walled Oasis City on the Amu Darya Khiva was never one of the great Silk Road capitals. It stood on a side branch of the network, in an oasis on the lower Amu Darya, hemmed in by the Kyzylkum and Karakum deserts. Yet its walled inner town, Ichan Kala, […]

Bukhara and the Silk Road: Islamic Scholarship, Architecture and Urban Life

A tall tapering brick minaret rising in a paved square between tiled portals and turquoise domes, in the style of the Kalyan ensemble in Bukhara, Uzbekistan.

Bukhara and the Silk Road: Islamic Scholarship, Architecture and Urban Life Merchants made Bukhara rich, but scholars made it famous. For a thousand years the city turned the profits of caravan trade into mosques, libraries, Sufi lodges and colleges, and the medieval historian Narshakhi recorded that one of its Arabic names was simply “the city […]

Samarkand and the Silk Road: Timurid Ambition, Learning and Monumental Space

A ribbed turquoise dome on a tiled drum above an arched portal at golden hour, in the style of the Timurid mausoleums of Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

Samarkand and the Silk Road: Timurid Ambition, Learning and Monumental Space When the Castilian ambassador Ruy González de Clavijo reached Samarkand in September 1404, he found a city still being built. Timur had pulled down the gate of his new congregational mosque because it was not grand enough, was cutting a market street straight through […]

Burana Tower: Balasagun and the Medieval Urban World of the Chuy Valley

A truncated medieval brick minaret on a grassy mound in a green valley, with snow-capped Tian Shan mountains behind, in the style of the Burana Tower in the Chuy Valley, Kyrgyzstan.

Burana Tower: Balasagun and the Medieval Urban World of the Chuy Valley The Burana tower rises from the floor of the Chuy Valley in northern Kyrgyzstan like a broken-off column: a brick minaret with its upper half missing, standing alone among grassy mounds, with the snow peaks of the Tian Shan behind it. Those mounds […]

Issyk-Kul Lake: The Northern Silk Road, Petroglyphs and Mountain Landscapes

The deep blue water of Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan seen from a boulder-strewn northern shore, with the snow-capped Tian Shan rising on the far side of the lake.

Issyk-Kul Lake: The Northern Silk Road, Petroglyphs and Mountain Landscapes Seen from its northern shore, Issyk-Kul Lake looks like an inland sea that has strayed into the mountains: a sheet of deep blue water about 180 kilometres long, held between two ranges of the Tian Shan at about 1,600 metres above sea level. For travellers […]