MUSEUM AND AFRASIAB SETTLEMENT

Afrasiab is an ancient settlement with an area of more than 200 hectares, in the form of a cluster of yellow-gray loess hills. Afrasiab is the ruins of ancient Samarkand. In the 17th century, the ruins got their name in honor of the mythical king of Turan Afrasiab.

Archaeological research on Afrasiab began to be carried out from the 1870s, soon after the conquest of Central Asia by the Russian Empire (1868). Archaeological research has confirmed that several centuries before the beginning of our era, Samarkand was one of the largest trade and cultural centers of Central Asia. The city of Marokand was protected from the north and east by cliffs of river channels, and from the south and west by deep ravines.

Samples of ornamented pottery, terracotta figurines, fragments of ossuaries, glassware, various tools, women's jewelry, and coins were found at the settlement.

It was established that the city was intersected by straight cobbled streets and divided into quarters - guzars, was surrounded by powerful defensive walls, inside which there was a citadel, residential buildings and craft workshops.
Landscape bas-reliefs were also found during the excavations.