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Konigil village, Samarkand region

Twelve kilometres east of Samarkand a water-wheel is grinding mulberry bark exactly the way it did in 751 CE — the year Abbasid soldiers captured Chinese papermakers at the Battle of Talas and brought them to the nearest big Islamic city, which was Samarkand.

Vaulted brick alley in Samarkand with painted plates, ikat scarves and hanging ceramics

This paper is what museums use to restore manuscripts written on this paper a thousand years ago. It is the last workshop in the world still making it the Samanid way.

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The Silk Road: origins, merchants, and what actually moved along it

The name 'Silk Road' is only 148 years old. The road itself ran through Uzbekistan for 1,500 years before anyone had named it. It moved paper, mathematics, and religions as much as silk.

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Samarkand

The turquoise crossroads of empires

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