Monuments of Merv: Traditional Buildings of the Karakum (Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London) Book

Archaeological research and ancient records have been combined in this work to provide a comprehensive account of the buildings of Merv, an oasis city in the middle of the Turkmenistani desert. Founded in the 6th century BC, Merv was a key staging post along the Central Asian trade routes linking Europe and India, and its buildings impressed all who visited the city. Contemporary chroniclers commented on the splendour and opulence of these palaces, pavilions, gardens and towers springing from the sand. Time and the weather have since eroded the mud brick from which these buildings were constructed, but enough remains to allow for the imaginative reconstruction of an important group of early Islamic buildings, of such importance that they are now being considered for World Heritage Site status. As a group, these buildings tell the story of the evolution of architectural styles in the early medieval and Seljuk eras (from the 7th to the 13th centuries AD), a period during which the Islamic world developed its own unique range of building types and decorative motifs. This book examines in detail each of the surviving buildings of Merv, discussing the form and function of each building type - from palaces to ice-houses, and from fortified watch-towers to libraries and dovecotes. The author also describes and illustrates the great range of treatments used for doors, windows, corridors and stairways, monumental entrances, rooms, domes and vaults, niches, wall decoration and flooring. This is a book that will serve as a major resource for scholars of Islamic architecture, and as an inspiring record of a group of ancient buildings of haunting elegance and artifice.Read More