The Silk Road
Follow the squares, trading cities and desert streets of Central Asia and Iran. Goods were not the only things travelling these roads; ideas moved with them.
01 · Uzbekistan · c. 1420
The Registan
On the front of the madrasa on the east side of the square, two large cats are chasing two white deer, and out of the back of each cat rises a sun with a human face. They are made of glazed tile, they are enormous, and they are the first thing anyone entering the square looks at.
Read the story02 · Uzbekistan · c. 1127
Historic Centre Of Bukhara
In the 1930s a Soviet archaeologist working on the western edge of Bukhara started digging into what looked like a low hill in an old cemetery. What came out of it was a building: a perfect brick cube with a dome on top, each of its four sides identical, the walls laid in a basket-weave pattern that changes as the sun moves across it.
Read the story03 · Turkmenistan · c. 250 BC
Merv
In southern Turkmenistan, on the edge of the Karakum, a cubic building stands by itself on flat ground. A dome on top, walls of mud brick and fired brick, nothing around it. This is the mausoleum of the Seljuk sultan Sanjar, and it once stood in the middle of one of the most populous cities in the world.
Read the story04 · Iran · c. 470
Historic City Of Yazd
In the center of Iran, where the Lut and Kavir deserts meet, an expansive mud-brick city rises from the golden sands. This is the Historic City of Yazd, one of the oldest adobe settlements on Earth. Looking over the rooftops of Yazd, the first things that catch the eye are the tall, slatted towers rising into the sky.
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