Samarkand

city · earth

Principal city of Sogdiana, in the Zarafshan valley, and the home base of the Sogdian merchant networks that worked the eastern routes. Taken by Alexander in 329 BCE as Marakanda, by the Arabs under Qutayba ibn Muslim in 712, sacked by Chinggis Khan in 1220, and rebuilt by Timur from 1370 as his imperial capital. Papermaking was established here in the eighth century and passed westward from it. The pre-Mongol city stood on the Afrasiab mound just north of the present centre; the Registan, Gur-e Amir and Ulugh Beg's observatory are Timurid.