Covered with turquoise domes shimmering under starlit skies observed by famous astronomers during the Middle Ages, Samarkand – the Maracanda of the Greeks, the Afrasiab of the Sogdians – appears as one of the few mythical cities on the planet that has continued to shine brilliantly, like Rome, for over 2,500 years.
Its history is tied to that of the ancient and modern world, to the disappearances and emergences of great civilizations – Persian, Greek, Sogdian, Mongolian – whose assaults and influences it endured. Recall ten to twelve centuries of a splendid pre-Islamic civilization, a Sogdian culture consisting of powerful city-states, warrior-like and mercantile, with Samarkand being an essential and cosmopolitan stop on the Silk Road.
Then from 712 AD, the date of the region’s conquest by Arab-Islamic armies, ten more centuries of religious and cultural brilliance followed, culminating in the 15th and 16th centuries with the famous Timurid dynasty, founded by Timur (Tamerlane).
Thus, the evocation of beautiful Samarkand invites us to dream, but also to reflect on the history of mankind, thanks to the photographs of Suzanne Held, and the jewels and textiles from private collections.
In resonance with this exposition, on Saturday, May 19, as part of the Nocturnes of Asia, “An Evening in Samarkand” will be heard in the “music salons” from 8 PM to midnight.
