Uzbekistan | Samarkand | Shah-i-Zinda Necropolis

After my pilgrimage to the Tomb of Khazret Khizr, the Patron Saint of Wanderers and Marijuana, I wandered by the Shah-i-Zinda Necropolis. Although most of tombs here date to the Timurid Era in the 14th and 15th centuries, the complex was founded in the eleventh century, before the invasion of Chingis Khan in 1220, and I was curious to see what if anything had survived the Mongol onslaught. Since the complex is quite large and I doubted if anything which survived Chingis’s assault on the city would be marked I decided I better hire a professional guide. I was extremely lucky in acquiring the services of Denis Vikulov, who has worked as a guide for numerous professional photographers, reporters, and writers as well as run-of-the-mine tourists like myself. Not only was he already aware of some parts of the complex said to date to before Chingis’s invasion, he also called one of his old college professors who gave him some additional hints as to what to look for.

The entrance to the Shah-i-Zinda Necropolis. The south-facing ceremonial gate was constructed by order of Ulugh Beg, grandson of Amir Timur (Tamurlane) in 1434–35.

Staircase, also said to have been built by Ulugh Beg,  leading from the ceremonial gate to the main complex of mausoleums.

More than twenty mausoleums, most of them built by order of Amir Timur, line the narrow walkway through the complex. These include the tombs of Amir Timur’s favorite niece, Shadi Mulk Aga, built in 1372, his sister Shirin Bika Aga, and other relatives and members of the Timurid aristocracy. There is also a mausoleum devoted to well-known scientist and astronomer Kazi Zade Rumi, built by Amir Timur’s grandson Ulugh Beg, who had A Thing for Astronomy, in 1434-1435.

Walkway through the complex lined with mausoleums

Front of one of the mausoleums

Detail of one of the mausoleums

Walkway with tombs on either side

Next to Shirin-Bika-Aga Mausoleum is the so-called Octahedron, an unusual octagon-shaped open crypt which dates back to the beginning of the fifteen century.  According to my guide, pilgrims from Azerbaijan who have visited the Shah-i-Zinda Complex (pilgrims come here from all over the world) say that such octagonal crypts are common in their country. Apparently this is the only one found in Uzbekistan. 

The Octahedron

More to the point, however, the base of the Octahedron dates back to the eleventh century, according to local historians, or before the invasion of Chingis. Whatever was originally built on the foundation was destroyed, and later the Octahedron was built on it. Historians claim the stonework of the base is typical of the tenth and eleventh centuries. 

Base of the Octahedron, said to date back to before the Chingisid invasions.

Farther north from the Octahedron is the heart of the whole Shah-i-Zinda complex, the tomb and mosque of Kusam ibn Abbas, the cousin of the prophet Muhammad. Kusam ibn Abbas supposedly accompanied one of the very earliest invasions by Islamic Arabs of Transoxiana and was killed here in Samarkand. I have been unable to determine if this story is based on an historical incident or if it is simply a pious legend. In any case a whole corpus of legends have grown up around Kusam ibn Abbas and his tomb and mosque here in the Shah-i-Zinda complex. These need not concern us here, although I may return to this at a later date. 

Ancient wooden door at the entrance to the tomb of Kusam ibn Abbas.

Detail of the door. The inscription on the column to the right gives the name of the man who carved the door and when it was made: 1404-05 

Of more interest is the claim that parts of the Kusam ibn Abbas complex date back to before the Mongol conquest. The existing tomb and mosque, reportedly built in the fifteen and sixteenth centuries, as indicated by the door above, is said to have included some structures which survived the destruction of the original complex by the Mongols.  For instance, just inside the main door is the base and entryway to a minaret said to date to the pre-Mongol era. The top of the minaret itself was destroyed by the Chingisids but the base and entryway was incorporated into the now-existing structures. 

 Base and Entryway to Pre-Chingisid Minaret

The Tomb of Kusam ibn Abbas is behind the door at center. The inner tomb room is usually not open to the public. 

 Ceiling decoration in the outer tomb room

Detail of ceiling decoration

Just outside the tomb room of Kusam ibn Abbas is a wooden wall also said to date to before the Chingisid invasion. It survived the destruction of the orginal complex and was incorporated into the now-existing structure. Local historians claims the carvings on the wooden wall are indicative of the tenth and eleventh centuries. 

  Pre-Mongol Wooden Wall

A carved beam also said to date to before the Mongol conquest. At the top right is the carved head of a sheep, with the nose broken off. 

Just outside the outer room of  Kusam ibn Abbas’s tomb is a locked door opening onto a staircase which leads down to an underground chamber where Sufis used to do 40 day solitary meditation retreats. My guide, who over the years has managed to gain access to normally closed places like the underground crypt of Amir Timur, the Inner Tomb Room of Kusam ibn Abbas, and other even harder to enter Holy of Holies, says that he has never been able to get permission to visit this meditation chamber, and it remains somewhat of a mystery what is going on down there. Some speculate that it might still be in use by solitary meditators. 

Uzbekistan | Bukhara | Ismael Samani Mausoleum

From Komil’s Guesthouse I wandered over to Ismael Samani’s Mausoleum on the western edge of town ( N39°46'37.10' / E64°24'2.59', three quarters of a mile from the center of town, the center being for our purposes the square between the Kalon Mosque and the Mir-i-Arab Madrassa). The mausoleum is the oldest building in Bukhara and one of the oldest buildings in Inner Asia. The foundations of the Magok-i-Attari Mosque in Bukhara, originally part of a pre-Islamic Zoroastrian or perhaps even Buddhist temple, may be older, but the original building was destroyed by fire in 937. It was rebuilt in the 12th century, only to be heavily damaged during on the Mongol Assault On The City in the spring of 1220. Apparently only the eleventh-century southern-facing facade has survived intact down to the present day. The Ismael Samani Mausoleum dates from probably the first decade of the the tenth century—it was already completed when Ismael, who consolidated the power of the Samanid Dynasty and made Bukhara its capital, died in 907—and survived the later Mongol onslaught with little if any damage. Thus it is one of two pre-Mongol invasion structures in Bukhara—the other being the Kalon Minaret—which have survived basically undamaged down to the present day. Don’t worry, I will have more to say on the Magok-i-Attari Mosque and the Kalon Minaret in good time; for the moment I will focus on the Ismael Samani Mausoleum.

The mausoleum is a near-perfect cube topped by a dome, measuring 35 feet on each side, with four identical facades which incline inward just slightly. The structure incorporates pre-Islamic Sogdian elements, such as the heavy three-quarter inset columns built into each corner, and Sassanian features like the four small ovoid domes at the corners of the roof, while at the same time introducing new designs, such as the so-called chortak system of supporting the dome. “The problem of setting the dome over a square chamber,” reckons architectural history Edgar Knobloch, “is here carried beyond the simple solution of Parthian and Sassanian times. Consisting of three supporting arches which curve down from the crown of the arch to the walls, the squinch carries the thrust of the dome downward—rather like a Gothic flying buttress.” These new architectural features might well be the product of advances in geometry and mathematics by al-Khorezmi (the Father of Algebra, (780-850) and other leading lights of the intellectual florescence in Mawarannahr and Khorezm in the ninth and tenth centuries.  

What is most readily apparent to the casual observer, however, is the complex brickwork designs on the outer faces of the six and a half foot-thick walls and the corner columns. These have no real precedent in any other surviving Inner Asian buildings, and it would be hard to find their match in any subsequent brick monuments. The extruding bricks in the walls also creates shadows which change the appearance of the designs as the sun moves moves across the sky. On overcast days, when the sun casts no shadows, the building assumes yet another aspect. 

Accounts of the mausoleum over the years mention various tombs inside the mausoleum, including those of Ismael himself, his father Ahmed, his nephew Nasr, and others, but at the moment there only one coffin present. It is not clear if this is Ismael’s tomb, or if it is, whether his body is still inside. 

The Ismael Samani Mausoleum was in its earliest days in the middle of a vast cemetery. Historians believe that it was half-buried in sand and gravel by the time the Mongols arrived in the 1220 and thus escaped their notice. Since it was in the middle of a cemetery it may have also been protected from the fires which ravaged most of the wooden structures and destroyed even the brick buildings in the main part of the city. The building was still nearly buried in sand and debris when it was discovered by a Russian archeologist in 1934. The graves in the surrounded graveyard were later relocated or covered over and the area was turned into Kirov Park, which in addition to the mausoleum and another historic building, the Chasma Ayub, or Spring of Job, he of Afflictions notoriety, now features a ferris wheel and other fairground attractions. 

Ismael Samani Mausoleum 

 Ismael Samani Mausoleum 

 Ismael Samani Mausoleum 

Ismael Samani Mausoleum 

 Brickwork designs on the corner columns

 Small ovoid domes on the corners may harken back to Sassanian designs

 Dome of the mausoleum

 Window with brickwork grill

 Window with brickwork grill

 Tomb inside the mausoleum, perhaps that of Amir Ismael (r. 892 - 907)

Another view of the Mausoleum

Mongolia | Gov-Altai Aimag | Camel Trip | Tsenkher Gov | Solongo

The second day we continued south through the Tsenkher Gov. There was no wind at all and quite warm. Indeed in the afternoon it got downright hot and soon even the flies came out and started bothering our camels. This was not at all what I was expecting. During previous camel trips in the Gobi during the first two weeks of October I had experienced numerous days of frigid temperatures and ferocious winds. Now I began to worry that our goat meat might spoil in the heat. Brother Duit and Sukhee allowed that it had been an unusually warm autumn so far. Whether it had anything to do with Global Warming they did not know. 

Continuing across the Tsenkher Gov

At 6:30 in the evening we camped for the night, having covered 36.2 kilometers (22.5 miles) that day. The sky was clear when I turned in, but at about two in the morning I woke up and noticed that it had clouded over completely and not a single star was visible. Also the temperature was falling and the wind was rising. When I got up at six to start the fire I flung on my winter deel which I had not worn yet on this trip but was using as a blanket over my sleeping bag. By 7:22 when the sun rose it was 20º F and the wind was blowing steadily at about 30 to 40 miles an hour. The sky was pewter gray with ragged black clouds scudding overhead. The weather seemed to affect the mood of the camels, who bawled and snorted and several times jumped up while they were being loaded, scattering our gear in all directions. Finally by nine we were back on the trail, everyone wearing their winter deels except for Sister Dulya, who opted for insulated pants and a stylish ski jacket. Since the pack camels seemed still unruly Sukhee said he would walk his camel for the first couple kilometers and lead the two pack camels by hand. Brother Duit, Sister Dulya, and Solongo followed on their camels and I brought up the rear. 

Solongo, left, on her white camel

As usual in the morning I let my camel slow down until the others were a hundred meters or so ahead and began to recite mantras—in the case the familiar OM MANI PADME HUM—while counting them off on my mala. I always did this for the first hour or so on trail as a way of settling into the day. We were passing through ridges of black, crumbly slate and soon the others were out of sight. The wind had picked up considerably, now blowing maybe sixty miles per hour, and it had gotten even colder. The ragged strips of clouds streaming overhead seemed to mirror the black shale underfoot. Ravens wheeled overhead, gliding with the wind and then tacking into it. My camel seemed nervous and kept tossing its head left and right, every so often turning around to give me a baleful look. Then something startled my camel and it leaped forward five or six paces before I could get it under control again. A bit farther on it stopped in its tracks and refused to move until I beat it repeatedly on its hind flanks with my lead rope. 

Coming around a high outcrop of black shale I noticed Sister Dulya and Brother Duit standing by their camels. At their feet sat Solongo. She was hunched over with her head hanging down. When I reached them Sister Dulya explained that Solongo’s camel, the only white one in the bunch, had thrown her and that she had fallen on her head and shoulder. Dulya tried to talk to her but she just kept mumbling that she could not move her right arm. We wrestled her out of her winter deel and Brother Duit carefully felt her arm and shoulder. Nothing seemed to be broken, but her arm was completely immobile. Also, she had a nasty bump on the back of head, but the skin was not broken. We rigged up a sling from Sister Dulya’s long wool scarf, put Solongo’s arm in it, and then tried to get her to stand up. She said her head was spinning and at first she could not get up, but finally we managed to get her to her feet. 

Sukhee had gone on ahead with the pack animals and was already out of sight when Solongo’s camel threw her. Apparently he was unaware that anything had happened. Brother Duit said we should try to catch up with him as soon as possible, since he had all of our food, water, and camping gear. We might have to camp for the day and allow Solongo to rest. Solongo would ride his camel and he would ride the Solongo’s white camel, which still seemed spooked. He made the white camel kneel and swung himself on. The camel got to its feet normally, but as soon as it was standing it went completely berserk again. Camels are normally such placid creatures that it is always a shock to see how out of control they can get when they finally freak out. The camel began bucking like a bull in a rodeo, all four feet off the ground as it twisted and contorted itself in mid-air. Brother Duit didn’t have a chance. The camel bucked him off and he went flying through the air like a rag doll, finally coming to rest on a heap of sharp shale shards.   When he stood up his face and the front of his deel was covered with blood. It was an eerie reenactment of what had happened to his Brother Tsogoo on My Last Camel Trip. After throwing Brother Duit off the white camel had trotted off at full speed and soon disappeared between the black ridges. WIthout even pausing to wipe the blood off his face Brother Duit leaped on his own camel and went off in pursuit of the white camel. 

That left Sister Duit, Solongo, and myself. We were standing in an completely exposed area in sixty mile an hour winds. And there was not a stick of firewood anywhere in the immediate area. About a half mile away I notice some high cliffs with some saksaul bushes at their base. There I thought we might be able to get out of the wind, get a fire going, and get some hot tea into Solongo. Tea is my solution for just about every problem. Solongo wasn’t talking, but when we asked if she could walk to the cliffs she nodded yes. Sister Dulya and I walked our camels. To have any kind of accident and have another camel run off would be a real disaster at this point. 

Among the boulders at the base the cliff we were out of the worse of the wind. Soon I had brewed up a pot of Puerh tea and we lunched on sausage and fried bread. Solongo still could not move her arm at all, but at least she was soon able to talk. She said she had no idea what had gotten into her camel. Like the rest of the camels it had seemed a bit nervous that morning. Then for no apparent reason it just freaked out completely. She said she had landed first on her shoulder and then her head had bounced off a large chunk of slate. Her head still throbbed. We threw out a camel blanket for her and let her lie down to rest. Soon she appeared to be asleep.

Sister Dulya, never one to waste a moment, get out a needle and heavy black thread and began repairing the various rips and tears that had already appeared in some of our duffle bags. I went off and sat by myself. I could not help but wonder if this problem with the white camel was not somehow my fault. Originally the white camel had been meant for me. When Tsogoo had first told us that he had rounded up seven camels for our trip, I had half-jokingly asked if he had gotten a white camel for me. He replied that no, all seven of them were standard brown camels. Too bad, I said, I usually ride white camels. 

My white camel, right of center, from an earlier camel trip

On one of My First Trip Camel Trips I had been doing research on the notorious bandit and warlord Dambijantsan, who was also known as “The Two White Camel Lama” because of his habit of always riding a white camel and leading one white pack camel. The local camel men, who I had questioned extensively about Dambijantsan, had given me a white camel to ride, explaining that since I was so interesting in Dambijantsan I should ride a white camel also. This become a kind of tradition for me, and on several subsequent camel trips I had also ridden white camels. Camel men had even called me “One White Camel Don.” It was no big deal, however, and when Tsogoo saId he had seven brown camels for us I certainly did not tell him to get me a white camel. When he showed up with the camels at our starting point of Zakhyn Us, however, he had six brown camels and one white camel. He explained that he had gone out and rounded up the white camel just for me. It had not yet been ridden that year and was a bit wild, so I should let his daughter Solongo, who he knew was very experienced with camels, ride it the first day or two. 

By the third day, today, I had forgotten all about the white camel business and Solongo had ridden the white camel as usual. Then it had thrown her off and now she was hurt. The white camel should never have been on the trip in the first place. There is a legend that anything connected with Dambijantsan turns out badly—the so-called “Curse of Dambijantsan,” and sitting there by myself among the rocks at the base of the cliff with a black raven wheeling and cawing overhead—there is another legend that the spirit of Dambijantsan to this day rides on the winds of the Gobi in the corporeal form of a raven—I could not help but wonder if the Curse had struck again. 

Solongo’s white camel 

An hour or so later Brother Duit came back. He had been unable to track down the white camel. And now Sukhee was far out ahead of us somewhere, unaware that anything had happened. First Brother Duit would have to go get him and bring him and our supplies back to where we were now. Brother Duit and Sukhee and the pack camels did not return for another two hours. They then decided they would go again and together try to find the white camel. Three hours later they returned. The white camel was gone and would probably return by itself to Tsogoo’s herd about seventy kilometers to the north. It had however thrown off its saddle and they did find that. Solongo said she was able to ride so we decided to continue on. Sukhee put her saddle over the top of the load on one of the pack camels and she climbed aboard, her arm still in a sling. We had only traveled four kilometers that morning before the accident. Starting again we soon crossed a low pass in the slate hills and came out onto the Nomin Gov, the fourth of the govs we would travel through. We rode until the sun went down and managed to cover another 18.1 kilometers before camping.

Sister Dulya did the cooking that night. Solongo sat on a corner of the carpet with her arm in a sling. Finally she told us a little more about the accident. She said that after landing on her shoulder she sat up, only to discover that she was unable to breath. She had of course had the wind knocked out of her, a common occurrence for those playing the rougher sports, but one which had never happened to her before. Unable to draw a breath she had the sudden premonition that she was about to die. “It was so strange,” she said. “I was thinking, I am so young, I have hardly lived. There are so many things I have never done and have never experienced. And now I never will. How strange life is, and how strangely it ends! I am going to die here in the desert, in this empty place surrounded by black hills. Who could have imagined my life would end like this? Then I started to see everything that would have happened if only I had lived. Everything I could have been, everything I could have done, passed before my eyes. Then I started to black out.” At that point she fell backwards. Lying on her back she suddenly discovered that she could breath again. After a couple shallow breaths she was able to take a deep breath, and she realized that she might not die after all. We asked her about what she had seen, what she could be and what she could do if only she had the chance, but she said she did not want to talk about it. She was silent the rest of the evening. 

Solongo, all smiles before the accident

Italy | Venice | St. Mark’s Basilica | Four Horses

Of all the treasures looted by Doge Enrico Dandolo and the Venetians during the sack of Constantinople in 1204 perhaps the most famous are the four horses now on display in St. Mark’s Basilica Museum in Venice. Where these horses were originally made and by whom is a matter of great scholarly debate. I intend to investigate this matter in due course. For the moment suffice it to say that they eventually ended up on top of one of the gates of the immense stadium in Constantinople known as the Hippodrome. After being seized by the Venetians in 1204 they stood for centuries on the facade of St. Mark’s Basilica. When Napoleon Bonaparte seized Venice in 1797 he had them carted off the Paris, a fittingly prize for what he considered to be the new center of world civilization. After the Little General met his Waterloo they were returned to Venice and placed back on the facade of St. Mark’s. Air pollution from industries on the mainland, however, wrecked havoc on the copper statues. In the 1970s copies were made and placed on the facade. The originals are now in the museum on the second floor of the basilica, just behind the facade. 

Artist’s rendering of the Hippodrome in Constantinople. It seated about 100,000 people. The four horses were probably atop the center gate at the upper right of the photo. The Hippodrome is gone but many of the monuments in the center can still be seen today (click on photos for enlargements).

Artist’s rendering of the gate, center, with the horses atop

The area where the Hippodrome stood is now occupied by Sultanahmet Square. The photo was taken roughly where the gate stood that supported the horses. The obelisk in the middle of the photo can be seen in the artist’s rendering above.

St. Mark’s Basilica

Facade of St. Mark’s Basilica

Horses on the loggia of St. Mark’s Basilica

Another view of the horses on the loggia of St. Mark’s Basilica

The horses of St. Mark’s Basilica

The horses of St. Mark’s Basilica

The horses of St. Mark’s Basilica

The horses of St. Mark’s Basilica

The original horses now the Basilica museum. Not my photo. If you take photos in the museum you are thrown into the cell that legendary lover Casanova once occupied in the dungeon of the nearby Ducal Palace.

Horse’s view of St. Mark’s Square

Horse’s view of St. Mark’s Square

Horse’s view of the Ducal Palace. Casanova was once locked up here. He was under arrest for being a world-class cad and an insufferable douchebag.

St. Mark atop his basilica

St. Mark: “Oh Lord, what have I wrought?”

St. Mark’s at twilight