 Back
east, beyond the art museum but before the next covered market, Central
Asia's oldest mosque stands among trees on the north side of the street.
Magok-i-Attari was half buried when the Russian archaeologist Shishkin
got to it in 1939 after excavating the Samanids' mausoleum. He revealed
its most precious component, a 12th-century south-facing portal with immaculate
incised alabaster panels, but also found traces
of a 5th-century Zoroastrian temple and an even earlier Buddhist one. People
have worshipped most things here at one time or another, including the
moon. In pre-Arab times it served as a herbalists' bazaar selling idols
and drugs as well as herbs and spices. A fire destroyed whatever stood
here in 937. The first mosque went up in the 11th century; a new one, built
in the 12th, was ruined bar the south portal by the 15th. Most of what
survives dates from a comprehensive restoration carried out in 1546-7.
The brickwork of the east portal seems to imitate that of the Samanid mausoleum.
 The
south entrance, approached by stone steps, is now 5 m below ground level
and was always sunken: magok means 'in a pit'. Most of the interior now
houses a carpet exhibition but the brick-lined pits on the east side go
down to Shishkin's Buddhist depths. The chai-khana opposite Magok-i-Attari
occupies the 20th-century Sarrafan mosque and the dome over Ulitsa Lenina
beyond it belongs to Taq-i-Sarrafan, the moneychangers' bazaar.
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