Merv

city · earth

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. Occupied for four millennia across a chain of adjacent walled cities rather than one continuous site: Erk Kala, Gyaur Kala, Sultan Kala. It was a Seljuk capital and, by some counts, among the largest cities in the world in the twelfth century. The Mongol army under Tolui destroyed it in 1221; medieval death tolls of several hundred thousand are regarded by modern historians as heavily inflated. The site was never fully reoccupied, which is why it survives so well.