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city
Close ✕Merv
Oasis city on the Murghab river delta at the edge of the Karakum desert, and the single unavoidable staging point between Transoxiana and the Iranian plateau.
37.7, 62.2 · exact · c. 3rd millennium BCE - 1221 CE as a major city
On the world
- A place in: Silk Road · 9 places
- Joined to: Bukhara — Merv · 2 places
- Joined to: Merv — Antioch on the Orontes · 2 places
Lines mark links and orders the records assert; no path between any two places is recorded, and none is drawn.
Connections
- is connects to of Bukhara — The stage from Bukhara to Merv crosses the Karakum and the Amu Darya, the hardest leg between Transoxiana and the Iranian plateau.
- connects to Antioch on the Orontes — From Merv the routes cross the Iranian plateau through Nishapur, Rayy and Mesopotamia to reach the Mediterranean at Antioch.
- is destroyed of Mongol Empire — Tolui's army took and destroyed Merv in 1221. The city was never fully reoccupied, which is why the site survives so completely.
1145 objects · 280 located (1 withheld pending verification) · 865 unlocated · Basemap: Natural Earth (public domain) · marks drawn only from sourced coordinates