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Silk Road Cities: Koyne-Urgench

Visit one of the great centers of civilization in Central Asia

Aug 26, 2007

One of the remotest Silk Road cities, less well-known than Samarkand, Koyne-Urgensh rewards the adventurous traveler with some of Central Asia's most striking monuments.

The Turabeg Khanym Mausoleum is one of the most perfect buildings in Central Asia, but its exact origins and who was buried there are uncertain. It was built some time in the 12th century, but it may not be a mausoleum at all. Some archaeologists contend that it is, in fact, a throne room. Whatever its original purpose is, it now serves as a home for dozens of pigeons cooing in its alcoves and startling the silence with echoing wing-flaps, and playful swallows which circle just beneath the perfectly preserved mosaic of its interior dome.

The building is an enormous calendar. The mosaic under the dome is divided into 365 sections, symbolizing the days of the year. Below are 24 windows ringing the building. 12 are open to the sky beyond, and 12 are closed and covered in mosaic, symbolizing day and night—the 24 hours of the day. Below these windows are 12 larger arches, also mosaiced, for the months of the year, and below these arches 4 massive windows, one on each side of the building, representing spring, summer, autumn, and winter.

This is Koyne-Urgench, in the north of Turkmenistan two hours further on from Dashoguz city. This scattering of monuments, in a massive graveyard just outside the modern city of soviet cement and Turkmen yellow brick, was once the mighty city of Urgench, a center of the Muslim world and a major oasis on the silk road, capital of the Khorezmshahs and their empire—a city of medressas, libraries, mosques and minarets, until Mohammed II made a very, very big mistake in 1216.

Mohammed II thought himself another Alexander the Great—and maybe he would have been, had he not lived at the exact same time as another rather famous conqueror—Jenghiz Khan. After having his overtures of friendship rejected and 450 of his merchants murdered in Khorezm, Jenghiz sent three envoys to Samarkand to demand reparations. Mohammed II had one of them beheaded and the beards of the other two burnt off.

A few years later the Mongol armies sacked Bukhara, Samarkand, and marched on Urgench. The city held out for several months but finally the Mongols destroyed the nearby dam on the Oxus River, letting the river flood through the city, and massacred the survivors. They then proceeded to raze most of the city’s buildings to the ground.

Mohammed II died in rags on an island in the Caspian Sea, murdered by the Mongols. The intervening years had seen the sack and total destruction of Merv, Balkh, and Herat. The city of Urgench was rebuilt and became a part of the Golden Horde, the western part of the Mongol empire.

In 1388, as an obscure footnote to his career of destruction, severed heads and burning cities, Timur the Lame completely finished off Urgench.

In the Muslim world, being buried near the great monuments of the faith and the graves of saints is highly sought after. For this reason, all of these sights are surrounded, in this case fittingly, with the graves of common people. The path leading across the road to the other monuments cuts through hundreds of Turkmen and Uzbek graves.

The path winds its way toward the 64 meter high Gutlug Timur minaret, which looks like a smokestack sticking out of the ground, a giant chimney rising from this plain of graves.

The minaret has a noticeable tilt to it and looks no more impressive than it did from further away—it looks industrial and gloomy, ugly and broken-off at the top, with a crown of wooden scaffold a few meters down from its peak and a band or two of Arabic writing.

The sun beats down on the next monument, the Sultan Tekesh Mausoleum. Swallows swarm and circle the tomb’s chipped and battered dome, which is streaked with turquoise brick in a zigzag pattern, of which much is now missing. They dart in and out of a black hole in the dome, above the entrance. The silence of the place is complete, the flags of graves, the bright sun stark over everything.

Tekesh was the 12th-century Khorezmshah who make Khorezm great with conquests as far south as modern-day Iran and Afghanistan. On this spot, where he may or may not be buried (there is no tomb in the building) there also stood a medressah and library, neither of which survived.

Beyond a scattering of lonely graves rises Kyrkmullah (forty Mullahs) hill. When the Mongols attacked, this was the fortification where the inhabitants of Urgench made their last stand. Its ramparts melted into earth, dotted with graves, a dirt path winds up its incline. The ground is scattered with broken pieces of brick and pottery. The legend is that rolling down Kyrkmullah hill endows fertility, or at least that is what the Lonely Planet guide tells you, but the local Peace Corps volunteers say that the Turkmen roll down the hill for fortune telling and any number of things. From the top of the hill, the full sweep of this vast necropolis is visible. Whitewashed brick tombs dot the nearby hills and splay out into the valleys.

The next monument along the path is the Il-Arslan mausoleum, the tomb of Sultan Tekesh’s father, whose grandson’s hubris would bring so much ruin on this city.

The museum of Koyne-Urgench is housed in a 20th century mosque, a long low building with cells out back full of mannequins wearing traditional Turkmen clothes and surrounded by traditional Turkmen bric-a-brac, all of which has fantastically little to do with the city of Urgench—a place where no Turkmen lived.

Across a shady courtyard from one another past the museum, two more mausoleums square off. Beneath a tree in the center of the courtyard a couple of men are having tea. The more famous of the

two mausoleums is the Nejameddin Kubra. Kubra was a famous teacher and poet in the 12th and 13th century who founded the Sufic Kubra order, with followers still throughout the world.

Inside the mausoleum are two tombs—one for his body, and one for his head, cut off by the Mongols.

Getting There: You can catch a taxi to Koyne-Urgensh from the Bai Bazaar in Dashoguz City. It is also possible, for a higher fee, to hire the driver for the day, and have him shuttle you around the monuments and then drive you back to Dashoguz City. Hotels in Koyne-Urgensh are primitive, and best not experienced. The ancient city is an easy day trip from better accommodations in Dashoguz.