The Afrasiab museum is at the entrance to the site, half
way back to the bazaar on the right hand side of the Tashkent road. Its
most important possession by far, occupying the entire central hall, is
a 6th-century stucco frieze of a caravan of gifts for the ruler. Found
during excavations of the palace of Afrasiab in the 1920s and 30s, this
is one of the finest examples of Sogdian art anywhere. The principal gift,
leading the caravan on the left as you enter, is a princess on a white
elephant from Surkhandaria, followed by three ladies on horseback, two
male torch-bearers on a camel and four sacred white geese. On the central
wall are Chinese silk traders, long-haired Turks, mountain-dwellers from
the Tien Shan and Koreans identifiable by pig-tails on the tops of their
heads. All the human figures had their eyes scraped off in the 8th century
because they offended the Arabs; a copy in the History Museum near the
Registan fills in some of the gaps.
Afrasiab.Palase of Samarkand official.
Seventh - eighth centuries.Wedding procassion.Mural.
The museum also contains 4th-century BC Greek coins brought
by Alexander the Great, and a 2nd-century AD Zoroastrian altar. There is
also a hall of fame of Russian archaeologists, although they are less than
universally revered by Uzbeks for sending Samarkand's treasures to the
Hermitage.
Afrasiab.Palase of Samarkand official.
Seventh - eighth centuries.
Chaghanian envoys carryng gifts to the king of
Samarkand.Mural.
To reach the excavated part of Afrasiab turn left out
of the museum and follow the north edge of the site to its highest part,
the citadel, from which there is a sheer drop to the river Slab and a fine
view of Timurid Samarkand to the south-west. The mud bricks of the massive
outer walls are revealed in only a few places but the palace excavations
at the far end go down two floors. Beyond, the ground slopes down to the
airport road littered with fragments of ancient-looking pottery.
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