"merv" can still be searched. State Historical and Cultural Park "Ancient Merv Merv ancient

Heavily laden, I trudged along the three-kilometer-wide no man's land separating Uzbekistan from Turkmenistan. Trucks lined up on both sides of the traffic-choked road; it will take them at least three days to cross the border. But I moved quickly: all the tedious customs formalities, during which every detail of my luggage was registered in a weighty volume, took “only” four hours. I was heading to the ruins of the ancient city of Merv, located 300 kilometers from the border, which was already the diocese of a Nestorian bishop in the 4th century. I wanted to find out whether the reports of Soviet archaeologists in the 1950s were true. about the ruins of a church preserved in Merv: Western experts disputed this fact.

A week earlier, via telephone (the audibility was terrible), I had agreed to meet my driver Hassan at the Turkmen customs post, but now I was worried whether he would be there. Fortunately, he was indeed waiting for me in his 1970 Lada and offered to celebrate my arrival in Turkmenistan with a cup of freshly brewed coffee. He installed a coffee maker in the front passenger seat, plugged into the cigarette lighter, and loved to start it while driving the car at top speed - although countless police checks significantly slowed the process. Over the next 40 kilometers of the journey, my passport, entry permit issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Hassan's driver's license were subject to scrutiny 10 times. Each time, Hassan handed over his passport, inserting a banknote into it, which, of course, “stuck to the hands” of the interested party.

Like other Soviet republics in Central Asia, Turkmenistan declared its independence in 1991. President Niyazov (who died in December 2006) was previously the first secretary of the Communist Party of Turkmenistan; the power structures and those who controlled them remained the same, only the sign changed. Turkmenistan, with an area of ​​488,000 km and a population of almost 6 million, could have prospered thanks to its huge reserves of oil, gas and ore, but remains impoverished due to rampant corruption encouraged by Niyazov, who viewed the country as his fiefdom .

I read in the weekly Times of Central Asia about President Niyazov's incredibly inflated cult of personality. Some of his extravagant whims are simply made for entertaining reading. The main condition for obtaining a driver's license in Turkmenistan was not a driving test at all, but a training course of 20 lessons, built on the basis of the Ruknama, a four-hundred-page “spiritual guide for all Turkmens” written by the president. While Niyazov viewed his work as a history of the world, in which the development of all cultures of our planet is derived from the Turkmen “primary culture,” independent critics saw in Ruknama a superficial collection of pseudoscientific statements mixed with borrowings from the Koran and the Turkmen epic. The study of this work was mandatory not only in every educational institution, from kindergarten to university, but also in the civil service and in general in any type of activity. The shadow of Mao and his quotation book... Hassan assured me that this rule really exists. Whether this has made the roads safer is another question...

Following the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, President Niyazov gave himself the title “Turkmenbashi,” meaning “father of all Turkmen.” Accordingly, the capital's airport is named after Turkmenbashi; The Karakum Canal, vital for agriculture, is renamed the Turkmenbashi Canal; and along the Turkmenbashi highway you will get to the port of Turkmenbashi on the shores of the Caspian Sea. It seems that nothing has escaped renaming.

The devaluation of the Turkmen currency since the declaration of independence has been rapid. When the manat, a new currency, was introduced in 1993, two manats corresponded to one US dollar; Today, for one dollar you will officially get 5,000 manats, and on the black market - up to 24,000. At the same time, gasoline costs pennies: for a dollar you will fill 60 liters of high-octane AI-95 or 80 liters of A-76. Gasoline is 20–25 times cheaper than mineral water. However, the cotton harvest ensures that the Turkmen will not travel far, despite the fantastically cheap gasoline.

It is not only students who are required to be sent to harvest cotton; All bazaars are closed by order of the police from 9 am to 5 pm, and access roads are blocked by trucks parked across them. Even gas stations are closed from 3 pm to 7 pm, causing queues of hundreds of cars. These measures are being taken to ensure that everyone involved in agriculture participates in the cotton harvest. Really, it’s surprising that tourists like me haven’t yet been herded in to pick cotton along with everyone else!

In the city of Mary, in the center of Turkmenbashi Square, there is a shining golden statue of a seated Niyazov, larger than life-size. Rumor has it that it is made of pure gold. When I stopped to photograph this unparalleled monument, Hassan turned pale. Stopping and taking photographs are strictly prohibited, he said, and the building opposite belongs to the National Security Committee (successor to the KGB), which guards the statue around the clock. It was then that I noticed that this huge area of ​​the densely populated city was completely deserted. The hint was clear, and I decided to get out of here, forgetting about photography, the consequences of which were easy to foresee. In any case, I was not interested in Niyazov, but in the nearby ancient oasis city of Merv with its amazing history.

Merv was founded in the 7th century AD. e., although the earliest settlements on its territory date back to prehistoric times. Although Alexander the Great's visit to the city has not been proven, it was called Alexandria for some time. In the 5th century it was the throne city of the supreme archbishop of the Nestorian Church. Over the next 100 years, Merv was captured alternately by the Seleucids, Parthians and Sassanids. This continued until in 651, when the last of the Sasanian rulers, Yazdegard III, was killed, the city fell under the rule of the Arabs, who called it Gyaur-Kala, which means “city of infidels”, since it was inhabited by “pagans.” - Christians, Buddhists and Zoroastrians.

Under the rule of the Abbasid dynasty, Merv became the second largest city in the Islamic world after Baghdad. Thanks to its location - on the main route of the Silk Road - it became one of the richest and most significant trading centers in Central Asia. After several successive dynasties of Persian rulers, Merv was peacefully occupied by the Seljuk Turks, under whom it grew even larger and began to be called the “mother of the world.” In terms of culture, arts and science, Merv could compete for the title of the greatest city of its time, rivaling Alexandria itself. The star of this pearl of the East set in 1221, when Genghis Khan brutally exterminated its inhabitants. Between 750,000 and 1,300,000 inhabitants fell victims to his warriors. The 13th-century Iranian historian and ruler of Baghdad, Ata Malik Juvaini, in his History of the Conqueror of the World, describes this systematic destruction and tells how the Mongols lured the survivors out of their shelters:

A man who was with them (with the Mongols) pretended to be a muezzin and shouted the call to prayer; and everyone who came out of the hiding places where they were buried was grabbed and pushed into the Shihabi madrasah, and in the end they were all thrown off the roof. And in the whole city there were not even four people left alive.

Although Merv was partly rebuilt by Shah Rukh Khan, who ruled from 1407 to 1447, the oasis city fell into decay in the following centuries and became a no-man's land inhabited only by predatory tribes of Turkmen who traded in the slave trade. In 1884 it became the property of Russia.

The next day after my arrival, I was lucky enough to walk around the ruins of Merv, accompanied by Ak Mohammed Annaev, who knew the history of the city well. Ak Mohammed said:

If you do not take into account the Bronze Age settlements of Margush, which are located 40 km away, the territory of Merv is about 55 km. In fact, it includes 10 different towns. After the destruction of one of them, people left the ruins, and the city was built again in another place. The oldest visible ruins date back to the 6th century, and the most recent - to the 18th century.

Thus, it was as if we had taken a walk through 24 centuries.

On the eastern side of Merv are the impressive ruins of Kyz-Kala, the "Maiden's Fortress". They say that it was here in 1221 that 40 girls committed suicide, preferring it to Mongol slavery. The brick, windowless walls of the fortress, along which slender 15-meter columns still stand, date back to the late period of Sassanid rule.

Instead of windows there are only narrow embrasures that archers could use; light entered the fortress through the courtyard and inclined light wells. From the top level one could see the city center with the ruins of Sultan-Kala, the mausoleum of the Seljuk Sultan Sanjar Dar-al-Akhir, who ruled from 1117 to 1153 (died in 1157) and concentrated power over a gigantic empire in his hands, stretching from Samarkand to Baghdad. Above this cubic building rises the oldest double-domed dome in Central Asia. Its builders were inspired by the Samanid tomb in Bukhara (10th century) and even more ancient domes of Buddhist Central Asian temples. The cube of the mausoleum, the eight corners of which are associated with the earth, and the semicircle of the vault with the heavens, symbolizes the unity of heaven and earth, mortality and infinity.

Ak Mohammed sighed and explained that although the mausoleum is recognized as part of the world cultural heritage, this pearl of Seljuk architecture was not only overzealously, but also incorrectly restored. There are window niches in the walls, the main entrance is too large, there are not enough blue earthenware tiles in the vault, and the interior painting is tacky. This reminded me of the restoration of the Tash-Khauli Palace in Khiva (Uzbekistan), also funded by UNESCO. This organization appears to be unable to properly monitor the implementation of its projects.

To the northeast of the mausoleum is the oldest settlement of Merv, Erk-Kala. I remember seeing an inscription mentioning him in Iran three years earlier. This famous Behistun inscription, which is about 2500 years old, reads: “Says Darius the King (522–486 BC): “The country called Margiana (then name of Merv) has left me. One man, named Frada, a Margian, was proclaimed ruler by them. Then I sent Dadarshish, my subordinate, the satrap in Bactria to the Persian, (and) I told him this: “Go (and) defeat the army that does not recognize me... After that the country became mine” (translation taken from the book by A.A. Oparin "White clothes." Note lane). Situated on 50 acres of land, the complex of buildings was protected by a 17-meter-high clay wall, which was 20 meters thick at the base. Inside, under the semi-cylindrical vault, there were numerous living spaces, since the incredible thickness of the walls provided pleasant coolness in the summer and retained heat in the winter.

Throughout the entire area that was part of the sphere of Iranian culture, to which Merv also belonged, people used the insulating properties of thick clay walls to construct glaciers. The largest of Merv's three cone-shaped glaciers is 10 meters high and 19 meters in diameter at the base. On the southern side, the glacier was protected from direct sunlight by a clay wall; it has not survived to this day. The vault, made of clay bricks, had a built-in staircase on the inside - as did the water tank, dug deep into the ground during construction. In winter, it filled with water, which then froze. Thanks to the thickness of the walls and the protective outer wall, the ice was well preserved in the summer. Cross wooden beams and beams under the vault suggest that perishable foodstuffs were stored there. In addition, ventilation shafts provided a flow of fresh air along the interior walls.

The Shahriyar-Ark citadel was also desolate. A herd of fifty-headed dromedaries grazed where the Sultan's palace, divan, mint, two mosques, barracks and the famous library of the Sultan once stood. Only the ruins of one of the nine libraries of Merv, Kitab Khana, still resist time. All her valuable manuscripts perished in the fire of the Mongol invasion.

I began to ask Ak Mohammed whether there were Nestorians in Merv and whether any archaeological evidence of this had been preserved. Ak Mohammed laughed:

Good question! Soviet archaeologists Pugachenkova and Dresvyanskaya worked in Merv in the 1950-1960s. They identified a Nestorian temple in some well-preserved ruins. It is located 17 kilometers north of the mausoleum.

He showed me a photo dated 1966, in which an oblong building (41 m long) called Kharoba-Koshuk was clearly visible. It consists of 4 large and 2 small rooms, once united by a pointed vault, from which a single arch has survived to this day. But Ak Mohammed cooled my joyful anticipation with bitter words:

Unfortunately, this area is used for agricultural work, and seasonal rains have washed away most of the masonry. Some scholars do not recognize this building as a church. So you will have to decide for yourself whether it is her or not.

Hassan drove us along sandy roads, raising thick clouds of dust. Ak Mohammed was right: compared to 1966, even 15 percent of the former building was not preserved, and the high pointed arch collapsed. I explored the ruins, taking the necessary precautions. The position of the apse, where the altar once stood, was still guessable, and it was facing east, as it should be with the traditional orientation of churches. I knew that coins had been found at the site dating from the era of the rulers Kavadh I (reigned 498-531 CE) and Hormizd IV (reigned 579-590). I was quite inclined to agree with Ak Mohammed that these were indeed the ruins of a Christian church from the Sasanian period, converted into a residential building by the Seljuks in the 11th century, which explained the findings of Seljuk pottery.

Imagine that on the site of this sprawling pile of clay more than 1000 years ago there stood a great temple, perhaps even the cathedral of Merv, you can’t help but wonder: what will remain of our cities in the coming times? Modern archaeologists have found exquisite works of ancient art, rich burials, beautiful statues made of stone and metals and marvelous frescoes. I thought about what evidence of our civilization archaeologists would discover a thousand years from now. Remains of the highway? Coca-Cola bottles? Entertainment industry trash? Rusty tank barrel? And what will the appearance of civilization be like, reconstructed from these finds?

Our final destination was the mausoleum of Muhammad ibn Zeid, ruler of Merv from 1112 to 1114, who, according to legend, was a direct descendant of the Prophet Muhammad. As we approached the mausoleum, I was struck by the sight of a gnarled tree growing near it, from whose branches hung countless scraps of fabric. Pilgrims tie them to a tree, hoping for their wishes to come true. Some tapes contain verses from the Koran, others contain personal messages asking for the birth of a child or good health. This custom also exists everywhere in Tibet and Mongolia: there, too, single-colored or variegated pieces of fabric are tied to trees considered sacred. Several years ago I discovered a very unusual manifestation of this pre-Islamic custom in Uzbekistan, near the city of Urgut, southeast of Samarkand. Next to the 10th-century burial site belonging to the Islamic preacher and holy Khoja Abu Talib Samast, there is a thousand-year-old plane tree. Inside its mighty trunk was a small Muslim school that operated until 1920. The tiny school building and the tree that sheltered it still exist.

Pilgrims reverently walk around the mausoleum of Muhammad ibn Zeid seven times, after which they enter and stand near the saint’s grave, raising their arms and turning their palms to the sky. The imam reads a surah from the Koran and then blesses the unleavened cakes brought by the pilgrims. They will take this bread home and distribute it to relatives.

Walking around the tomb of a saint several times is a form of veneration that I have encountered many times in Islamic Central Asia - for example, at the mausoleum of the Sufi teacher Ahmed Yasawi, who died in 1166 in the city of Turkestan (Kazakhstan). There, pilgrims walk around the tomb counterclockwise even in the dead of night, touching the outer wall with their left palm and reading suras from the Koran. Women often carry sick babies in their arms and place them against the wall in certain places. Such pilgrimages demonstrate the peaceful side of Islam, which is characterized by reverence, humility and hope. I observed the same custom near the tomb of the Islamic saint Jafar al-Sadiq in the southern Chinese province of Xinjiang, whose population is mainly Muslim. At the entrance to the tomb hung horse tails and the fleece of sacrificial sheep - evidence of preserved pre-Islamic customs from the times of shamanism. The local population reveres these two burial sites as the “second Mecca.”

I asked the imam serving at the mausoleum of Ibn Zeid what it means for pilgrims to walk around it. He hesitated a bit to answer:

You are an infidel, which explains the ignorance of the question. Pilgrims walk around the tombs seven times because the Prophet ordered them to walk around the Kaaba in Mecca seven times.

This custom is also found in the Buddhist Himalayas and Mongolia, where circumambulation is respectfully performed around stupas, tombs, monasteries and even mountains. The most famous example of the latter is Mount Kailash, which is traversed by adherents of four different religions - Buddhism, Bon, Shaivism and Jainism. Mount Kailash personifies the axis mundi, the tree of the world and the stairway to heaven at the same time, the magical omnipresence of which is symbolized in Mongolia and Tibet by poles stuck vertically into the ground.

I also discovered this shamanic symbol - the shaman uses the stairway to heaven as a launching pad for the flight of the soul - in two underground mosques with necropolises on the Mangyshlak Peninsula in Kazakhstan. In these mosques, named Shopan-Ata and Beket-Ata, a thin tree trunk rises from the floor of the largest prayer hall through the ceiling skylight; pilgrims walk around it three times. The world tree pierces all levels of existence: the roots grow in the lower world, the trunk indicates the direction of our world, and the top provides a connection with the heavens. In another skylight of the Beket-Ata Mosque, more than two dozen ram skulls with huge horns are placed - another of the customs of the Mongolian shamanic culture. I have repeatedly seen the heads of sheep, deer, antelope or even bears hanging on trees facing west in Central Asia. Such a ritual is a tribute to this species of animal, the representative of which “participates” in it, encouraging him to be born again in this territory.

In Central Asia, the mausoleums of Islamic saints and Sufi mystics form a kind of “bridge” between Islam and shamanism. I believe that the closeness of the mysticism of the Sufis and shamans greatly facilitated the former’s missionary work with the Turkic population of Central Asia, which originally professed shamanism. The main common feature of both was the confidence that they could, being in ecstatic states of consciousness and thanks to friendly spirits, come into contact with the world of gods and semi-divine entities here and now, and not just beyond the grave.

At the end of my three-day visit to Merv, Ah Mohammed showed me a book from his personal library containing many old photographs dating back to 1891. At that time, many of the ruins, now unrecognizable due to complete decay, were still impressive and impressive-looking ruins. Although Russian scientists petitioned the Tsar to intervene and prevent the local sultan from destroying the ancient buildings, their destruction continued. The Sultan justified his actions by saying: “It will not harm the buildings; they will simply remove the old bricks to build new houses.” If you compare old photographs of Merv and Samarkand, you will have to conclude that Merv could have been restored no worse than Samarkand, if the ruins had been used (as building materials. - Note trans.) ceased at the end of the 19th century. Now tourists flock to Samarkand in flocks, and camels graze in Merv at this time.

Since I had heard rumors that mysterious underground structures on the Kazakh Mangyshlak peninsula may be associated with Nestorianism, I decided to explore them myself. These caves, now serving as mosque premises, are cut deep into the mountainside and can be reached by a narrow staircase. Near the entrance to each cave there are extensive necropolises with many medieval and more modern monuments. Next to some of them there are large stone figures of rams, called Koshkar mac. I have already looked for motifs associated with stone rams, originating from the Turkic-Mongolian culture, in the Nestorian cemeteries in Iran, in Maragha, Delemon and Göktepe. Among the Turks and Arabs, the ram was considered as a tribal totem and patron. Inscriptions in Arabic are carved on the backs of the stone figures, and swords, axes or pack bags are on their sides. Near the Shakpak-Ata cave, the cemetery comes close to the mosque. To the left and right of the entrance, two and five recesses were carved into the rock, respectively, in which burials were made at ground level. They are covered on top with loose stone slabs; in one of the graves you can see a skull whose age is equal to centuries.

Such cemeteries are more “cheerful” places than their European counterparts. Near the Hanga Baba necropolis, we saw a large family who had come to remember a relative who had fallen victim to Stalin’s “purge” of 1937. They laid out colorful carpets right next to the grave and slaughtered a sheep, which they immediately skinned, cooked and ate, giving a portion to the deceased. During this ritual, the deceased joins the life of the living - and vice versa.

Kazakh archaeologist Andrey Astafiev believes that these caves were never associated with Nestorianism, but were Sufi monasteries in the Middle Ages. In fact, locals believe that all these monasteries were founded by students of the 12th century Sufi teacher Ahmed Yassawi. The connection with Sufism also suggests extremely narrow passages, which can only be entered by crawling, which forces people to adopt a humble posture. Indeed, Sufis meditated in tiny dark cells, the entrance to which was closed for certain periods of time with huge stones.

All these mosques also show clear signs of pre-Islamic rituals. There are sacrificial altars there, worn out and blackened by lamb fat, reminiscent of the cult of fire. In Shopan-Ata, an elderly keeper of the shrine performed a fire ritual at midnight. She is both respected and feared, like a witch. She squatted at the entrance to the underground mosque, in front of a stone with a hollow in it, into which she poured some oil. Then she set fire to the oil and took out from the bag several pieces of paper with verses from the Koran written on them, which she threw into the fire, after reading out loud. About 20 people surrounded her respectfully. At the end of the ceremony, they "washed" their hands in the fire and applied them to weak or diseased parts of the body.

This ritual is reminiscent of the fire cult of the ancient Turkic and Mongolian peoples. Thus, the Byzantine envoy Zemarkos, who in 568 traveled to the Talas Valley in southern Kazakhstan to visit the Khan of the Western Turks, Istami, reported that the Turks were “purifying themselves with fire.” The fire ritual sent to Shopan-Ata also builds a bridge to the Kazakh Sufis. In the Sufi monasteries of the followers of Ahmed Yassawi, the sacred fire burned day and night. Each time, leaving the monastery, the Sufi stretched out his hands to the fire, and then ran them over his face. This purification ritual also shows that Islam has adopted pre-Islamic religious concepts.

Having examined the most important underground mosques, I came to the same conclusion as Astafiev. There are no traces of the presence of the Nestorians - neither inside the mosques, nor in the necropolises.

Website materials used: http://www.e-reading-lib.org Coordinates: 37°39′46″ N. w. 62°11′33″ E. d. / 37.6628028° n. w. 62.1925194° E. d. / 37.6628028; 62.1925194 (G) (O) (I)

Merv(Persian مرو‎; Turkmen Merw) is the oldest known city in Central Asia, standing on the banks of the Murgab River in the southeastern part of Turkmenistan, 30 km east of the modern city of Mary. The capital of the Persian satrapy of Margiana and the Seljuk state. The ruins of Merv are a World Heritage Site.

• 1. History
• 2 Infrastructure
• 3 Famous people from Merv
• 4 See also
• 5 Notes
• 6 Literature
• 7 Links

Story

Remains of a mosque in ancient Merv. Photo - late 19th century.

The Merv oasis was inhabited already in the era of the Margian civilization (late 3rd - early 2nd millennium BC). In cuneiform texts it is referred to as Margu, from which the name of the surrounding area comes. At the turn of the Common Era, Merv is one of the main urban centers of Parthia with an area of ​​60 km² and several rings of walls. According to Chinese sources, in 97, the Chinese military leader Ban Chao reached Merv with his detachment.

In the 3rd century AD e. The first Christians appear in the city. The powerful Merv Metropolis is being formed here. Evidence of their activity is the Christian necropolis of the 3rd-6th centuries in the vicinity of Old Merv, as well as the Kharoba-Koshuk structure 18 kilometers from Merv, which some researchers consider the ruins of a Christian temple.

After the Arab conquest of Central Asia in the 7th century. finds a second life as a springboard for aggressive expeditions to the north and east. Under the Abbasids, Merv was one of the main centers of Arab book learning, possessing ten libraries.

The heyday of the city began under the reign of the Samanid dynasty. Merv reached its greatest prosperity in the middle of the 12th century, when Sultan Sanjar made it the capital of the Seljuk state. At this time, Merv amazed contemporaries with the scale of its buildings and its huge population, which, according to some estimates, was larger than the population of Constantinople and Baghdad. It continued to remain the largest center of Central Asia even under the Khorezmshahs.

In 1221, Merv was destroyed by the Mongols and was not revived until the 15th century, when the Timurids finally put its irrigation structures in order, but Merv could not achieve its former greatness, over time the settlement was moved to the site of the modern city of Mary. With the arrival in the 1880s. The Russian army (see the battle on Kushka) began an archaeological study of the territory of the Merv oasis, which became systematic in the post-war period thanks to the activities of M. E. Masson.

Infrastructure

Tomb of the Eshab brothers

• The 12-hectare Erk-Kala citadel dates back to the Achaemenid era. A building on a monolithic platform rises above the fort, surrounded by a mud wall.
• The territory of the early medieval settlement of Gyaur-Kala with the ruins of several Buddhist and Christian monasteries, as well as two-story castles of nobles.
• The Sultan-Kala settlement in the shape of an irregular quadrangle is the core of the capital of the Seljuk Turks, somewhat west of Gyaur-Kala.
• The Shahriyar Ark citadel dates back to the Seljuk period and includes extensive ruins of barracks and palace buildings, as well as the mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar.
• Mausoleum of Muhammad ibn-Zeid on the suburban territory of the Seljuk capital - erected ca. 1112
• The southern settlement of Abdullah Khan-Kala represents the last period of development of Merv and is distinguished by a regular layout (palace, mosques, madrassas, mausoleums).

Famous people from Merv

See also: Marwazi

• Ahmad ibn Abd Allah al-Marwazi (770-870), mathematician and astronomer.
• Abbas Marwazi is a 9th century Persian poet.
• Masudi Marwazi - Persian poet of the 10th century.
• Sharaf al-Zaman Tahir al-Marwazi, 12th century physician

see also

• “Hakim of Merv, the masked dyer” - a story by Jorge Luis Borges

Notes

1. Biruni. Monuments of past generations. - Selected works. T. 1. Tash., 1957
2. Pugachenkova G. A. Kharoba Koshuk. - IAN Turkmen SSR. 1954, no. 3.
3. Largest Cities Through History

Literature

• V. M. Masson Merv is the capital of Margiana. - Mary, 1991 - 73 p.

Links

• Wikimedia Commons has media related to this topic Merv

In the southeastern part of the state of Turkmenistan is the oldest city in Central Asia. It stands on the banks of the Murgab River, not far from the city of Mary. Today, Ancient Merv is a ruin, which is a World Heritage Site for all mankind.

During the era of the Margiana civilization, the Merv oasis was already inhabited. This suggests that it existed for another 3-2 thousand years BC. In our era, the city became one of the main centers of Parthia. At that time its area was 60 square meters. km.

After the Arabs conquered Central Asia in the 7th century, the city became a springboard for conquest expeditions to the east and north. Over time, Merv turned into a book center for Arabs. This happened thanks to the 10 libraries that were located here.

During the reign of the Samanid dynasty, Merv truly flourished. This happened in the 12th century, when Sultan Sanjar turned it into the capital of the Seljuks. The buildings inside the city were amazing - they were more majestic than the buildings of Baghdad and Constantinople.

But already in 1221 the Mongols mercilessly destroyed the beautiful city. The Timurids made an attempt to revive Merv, but it was never able to achieve its former greatness.

Turkmenistan: Ancient Merv Who is the very first Of all the heavenly deities Above Chara rises Before the immortal Sun, Whose horses are fast, And the first to reach the Beautiful, golden Peaks, from where He sees the entire Aryan region, Where brave rulers Gather for battle, Where on the high mountains, Secluded, full of pastures, Cattle graze freely; Where on lakes the waves rise deep And where navigable rivers Wide streams rush their flow And to Ishkata Porutskaya, And to Merv , which is in Kharaiva, And to Gava, in Sogdiana, Or flows to Khorezm.
Avesta. Selected hymns. Translation from Avestan by Prof. I.M. Steblin-Kamensky. Dushanbe, 1990. P. 57.
Thirty kilometers east of Mary in the valley of the Murghab River there is a fairly large territory, the archaeological monuments of which are united by one name - Ancient Merv. Once upon a time, each of the five settlements, the remains of dilapidated buildings of which can be seen today, flourished in their era.
The settlement of Erk-Kala is the most ancient city of Merv, surrounded by a high fortress wall; later it became part of the ancient Gyaur-Kala, on the territory of which a Zoroastrian sanctuary, a Christian church, a Jewish temple, a Buddhist temple and a Muslim mosque were discovered. The latter was built later than all by the Arabs, who destroyed a prosperous city in which almost all religions of that time coexisted peacefully. Later they founded a city next to the destroyed one, but in the center of it they built their own mosque.
Today Erk-Kala looks like a clay funnel, or a buried volcano: a high and wide wall with melted bricks surrounds several similar melted hills and a small plateau. It is interesting to walk along the wall around the ancient settlement. It takes twenty minutes at a fast pace. It is also curious that shards are lying everywhere underfoot: simple from ordinary household ceramic vessels and covered with a bright glaze of heavenly, azure, and brown colors. There are also ancient coins. Some local residents make a living by collecting coins after the rain, like mushrooms, and then selling them to tourists.
But the most impressive of all the surviving fortresses is undoubtedly the Kiz-Kala fortress. This is a fortress fortified on all sides with unusual, as if corrugated, walls. It dates back to the 7th-8th centuries. Consists of two floors. The photo on the right shows the entrances to the lower floor and to the fortress wall.
Today you can only get to the top floor. The lower one remained buried underground. Archaeologists have not yet decided to excavate it, fearing the collapse of the entire structure.
Like many Asian buildings, the fortress was built of mud brick (a mixture of clay and straw) and, having stood for centuries in the open air, lost its strength.
Opposite Kiz-Kala there is another feudal fortress - it is smaller and not so well preserved. But the people united these two fortresses in one legend.
We managed to visit these fortresses at dawn, when there was not a soul nearby, and the walls of the old fortresses still met the sun in the same way as many centuries ago. But that morning the silence of the chambers was broken by our exclamations of admiration and the guide’s heartfelt story. The monuments of the 11th-12th centuries, when Merv was the capital of the Seljuk state, are much better preserved. At that time, thanks to the roads of the Great Silk Road, passing through Merv, trade, crafts, arts, and science developed in the city.
The famous oriental scientist, philosopher, and poet Omar Khayyam lived and worked in Merv.
There are many Islamic mausoleums in Merv in which former rulers or saints of the Arab world are buried. This is the well-preserved mausoleum of Muhammad ibn Zeid. It is built of baked bricks, and its interior is richly decorated with a unique wall inscription in Arabic and figured ornaments.
An old grandfather, Yashuli (an old respected man), lives in a mud hut next to the mausoleum. He welcomes all guests and not so long ago he personally met and talked about the mausoleum, but now he is blind and sits in his hut, also rejoicing when someone looks in on him. Grandfather is many years old; he himself does not remember when he was born. People from the nearest village take care of him, and tourists also look into his lonely cell with interest.
There is also one very unusual legend, even a fairy tale, about Sultan Sanjar.
Once Sultan Sanjar saw Peri and fell in love with her. He did not hide his feelings and confessed his love to the beauty, asking her to become his wife. Peri agreed, but on three conditions. Today, the mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar is a place of pilgrimage not only for believers, but also for all guests of Turkmenistan, including eminent ones. An American delegation led by US Deputy Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the mausoleum with us. People continue to come to Merv, again and again immersing themselves in its past, listening to stories about the long past, imagining a life long gone. And the old ruins are resurrected every day at dawn and fall back into sleep, sighing for the times when life was in full swing in them.

After the Arab conquest of Central Asia in the 7th century. finds a second life as a springboard for aggressive expeditions to the north and east. Under the Abbasids, Merv was one of the main centers of Arab book learning, possessing ten libraries.

Continued here.

The heyday of the city begins under the reign of the Samanid dynasty. Merv reached its greatest prosperity in the middle of the 12th century, when Sultan Sanjar made it the capital of the Seljuk state. At this time, Merv amazed contemporaries with the scale of its buildings and its huge population, which, according to some estimates, was greater than the population of Constantinople and Baghdad. It continued to be the largest center of Central Asia even under the Khorezmshahs.

In 1221, Merv was destroyed by the Mongols and was not revived until the 15th century, when the Timurids finally put its irrigation structures in order, but Merv could not achieve its former greatness, over time the settlement was moved to the site of the modern city of Mary. With the arrival in the 1880s. The Russian army (see the battle on Kushka) began an archaeological study of the territory of the Merv oasis, which became systematic in the post-war period thanks to the activities of M. E. Masson.

• Infrastructure
• The territory of the early medieval settlement of Gyaur-Kala with the ruins of several Buddhist and Christian monasteries, as well as two-story castles of nobles.
• The Sultan-Kala settlement in the shape of an irregular quadrangle is the core of the capital of the Seljuk Turks, somewhat west of Gyaur-Kala.
• The 12-hectare Erk-Kala citadel dates back to the Achaemenid era. A building on a monolithic platform rises above the fort, surrounded by a mud wall.
• Mausoleum of Muhammad ibn-Zeid on the suburban territory of the Seljuk capital - erected ca. 1112
• The southern settlement of Abdullah Khan-Kala represents the last period of development of Merv and is distinguished by a regular layout (palace, mosques, madrassas, mausoleums).

The Shahriyar Ark citadel dates back to the Seljuk period and includes extensive ruins of barracks and palace buildings, as well as the mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar.

• Ahmad ibn Abd Allah al-Marwazi (770-870), mathematician and astronomer.
• Abbas Marwazi is a 9th century Persian poet.
• Masudi Marwazi - Persian poet of the 10th century.
• Sharaf al-Zaman Tahir al-Marwazi, 12th century physician

Famous people from Merv

• see also

"Hakim of Merv, Masked Dyer" - story by Jorge Luis Borges

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Notes

• Literature V. M. Masson

Merv is the capital of Margiana. - Mary, 1991 - 73 p.

• Links Merv

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Excerpt characterizing Merv (ancient city)
Suddenly one of the clouds “broke” and a blindingly bright light blazed out of it. And in this light, in a sparkling cocoon, was approaching the figure of a very thin young man, with a face as sharp as a knife blade. Everything around him shone and glowed, from this light the black clouds “melted”, turning into dirty, black rags.
- Do you know him? – I was incredibly surprised, but Stella shook her head negatively.
The young man sat down next to us on the ground and, smiling affectionately, asked:
- Why are you here? This is not your place.
– We know, we were just trying to get to the top! – joyful Stella was already chirping at the top of her lungs. – Will you help us get back up?.. We definitely need to get home quickly! Otherwise, the grandmothers are waiting for us there, and they are also waiting for them, but different ones.
Meanwhile, for some reason, the young man looked at me very carefully and seriously. He had a strange, piercing gaze, which for some reason made me feel uneasy.
-What are you doing here, girl? – he asked softly. - How did you manage to get here?
- We were just walking. – I answered honestly. - And so they were looking for them. – Smiling at the “foundlings”, she pointed at them with her hand.
– But you’re alive, aren’t you? – the savior could not calm down.
– Yes, but I’ve been here more than once. – I answered calmly.
- Oh, not here, but “above”! – my friend corrected me, laughing. “We definitely wouldn’t come back here, would we?”
“Yes, I think this will be enough for a long time... At least for me...” I shuddered from the recent memories.
- You must leave here. “The young man said again softly, but more insistently. - Now.
A sparkling “path” stretched from him and ran straight into the luminous tunnel. We were literally pulled in without even having time to take a single step, and after a moment we found ourselves in the same transparent world in which we found our round Leah and her mother.
- Mom, mommy, daddy is back! And Great too!.. – little Leah rolled head over heels towards us, tightly clutching the red dragon to her chest.. Her round little face shone like the sun, and she herself, unable to contain her wild happiness, rushed to her dad and, hanging on him neck, squealing with delight.
I was happy for this family that had found each other, and a little sad for all my dead “guests” who came on earth for help, who could no longer hug each other as joyfully, since they did not belong to the same worlds.. .
- Oh, daddy, here you are! I thought you were missing! And you took it and found it! That's good! – the radiant little girl squealed with happiness.
Suddenly a cloud flew over her happy face, and it became very sad... And in a completely different voice the little girl turned to Stella:
– Dear girls, thank you for dad! And for my brother, of course! Are you going to leave now? Will you come back someday? Here's your little dragon, please! He was very good, and he loved me very, very much... - it seemed that right now poor Leah would burst into tears, so badly she wanted to hold this cute marvelous dragon just a little longer!.. And he was about to be taken away and there will be no more...
– Do you want him to stay with you some more? And when we return, will you give it back to us? – Stella took pity on the little girl.
Leah was at first stunned by the unexpected happiness that had fallen on her, and then, unable to say anything, she nodded her head so hard that it almost threatened to fall off...
Having said goodbye to the joyful family, we moved on.
It was incredibly pleasant to feel safe again, to see the same joyful light flooding everything around, and not be afraid of being unexpectedly grabbed by some kind of terrible nightmare...
- Do you want to take another walk? – Stella asked in a completely fresh voice.
The temptation, of course, was great, but I was already so tired that even if the greatest miracle on earth seemed to me now, I probably wouldn’t be able to truly enjoy it...
- Well, okay, another time! – Stella laughed. - I am also tired.
And then, somehow, our cemetery appeared again, where, on the same bench, our grandmothers were sitting side by side...
“Do you want me to show you something?” Stella asked quietly.
And suddenly, instead of the grandmothers, incredibly beautiful, brightly shining beings appeared... Both had amazing stars sparkling on their chests, and Stella’s grandmother had an amazing miracle crown sparkling and shimmering on her head...
– It’s them... You wanted to see them, didn’t you? – I nodded dumbfoundedly. – Just don’t say that I showed you, let them do it themselves.
“Well, now I have to go...” the little girl whispered sadly. - I can’t go with you... I can’t go there anymore...