tajikistan
Substantially closer to Samarkand, Uzbekistan,
than to Dushanbe,
Penjikent is the old center of the Sogdian empire. It lies at
the entrance to Zeravshan Valley,
one of Tajikstan's main touristic attractions. Around the modern
town and in its museum you will find remains of the pre-Islamic,
Zoroastrian civilization. The remains of this Sogdian city are
just out of town, on a hill overlooking the valley. You can
wander around the site without being bothered by anyone.
Unfortunately,there are hardly any signs explaining what is
what. The director of the museum just next to the site is able
to explain everything in detail though. You may also find some
excavators here, and students from St. Petersburg willing to
tell you about their work and finds.
The town has a another small museum with
Soviet memorabilia and stuffed animals as well as impressive
finds from the excavations nearby -- wall paintings from the 5th
century, with faded colors but recognizable motifs and hunting
scenes.
You can also do excellent treks in the
surrounding Fan Mountains and further up the Zeravshan Valley.
Penjikent is usually visited from Samarkand as
part of a tour along the Silk route, other entry points are
Dushanbe in the South or Khujand in the North. For the latter
routes, you will have to cross high passes though. This means
that Penjikent is often isolated from the rest of the country
during wintertime.
The name Panjakent is derived from "panj"
(five) and "kant" (settlements), meaning "five settlements".Rudaki,
the founder of Persian-Tajik literature called "Adam of poets",
was born in Panjakent.
The ruins of ancient Panjakent are
situated in the Zarafshan
Valley about 60
km east of Samarkand. Panjakant was the easternmost city of Sogdia.
The site is being excavated from 1947 onwards. Excavations were
led by Y.Yakubovsky, A.Belenitsky and B.Marshak of the Ermitage
Museum in St. Petersburg. Due to the long period of excavations,
Panjakant has become one of the most thoroughly studied early
medieval cities in all Asia. Excavations show that Panjakant was
founded in the 5th cent and was inhabited until the 770s.
Panjakent is famous for the outstanding
frescoes. Today, a few of them are exhibited in the small Rudaki
Museum at Panjakent, but most of them are exhibited in Dushanbe and
the Ermitage in St.
Petersburg.
Ancient Panjakent was a town of the Soghdians.
The Soghdians were a people of an Iranian language. They
belonged to the most important peoples in Central Asia before
arrival of the Islam. The nameSoghd or Soghdian is
mentionned in historical sources of the Achaemenid Empire (6th
cent BC). The Soghdians founded several city-states in the
Zarafshan Valley and colonies along the Silk Road from the
Crimea to China and Mongolia. Ancient Panjakent was the capital
of the state of Panch.
The town dates to the 5th cent. AD. It was inhabited by rich
merchants and land-owners. The Arabs conquered Panjakent in 722.
The last ruler, named Devashtich,
fled into the mountains, but he was captured and sentenced to
death. People stayed in Panjakent under the rule of the
caliphate, but towards the end of the 8th century, the city was
abandoned.
Sights of Penjikent
Ancient Panjakent.
The archaeological site
of the ruins of old Penjikent - a walled inter-city which stood
2500-years ago - was once a Sogdian trading city on the Silk
Road. Today, only ruins are left owing to the fact that the main
construction material was clay-bricks. Often referred to as The
Pompeii of Central Asia, it is well worth a visit.
Duplicates of old Sogdian art are exposed in the nearby museum.
The director will also take you on a tour, which will open your
eyes to many interesting details which will normally escape the
laymen's eye. Ancient Panjakent was divided into a shakhrestan
(residental quarter) covering an area of about 13 hectares,
an ark (citadel) with a palace, covering an area of 1 ha,
a rabat (suburb pulular district) and a necropolis.
The site is huge. Located on the top of a hill, it offers
amazings views over the entire valley. The living quarters and
fortress were separated by a narrow wadi with a bridge
connecting the two parts of the city. Two temples in the
shakhrestan formed the center of the urban area. The two temples
contained statues and mural paintings. During the 5th and 6th
centuries, no building in Panjakent was as magnificient as the
two temples and even the houses of the wealthiest residents
seemed rather humble compared to the two temples. The buildings
were made of mud bricks and paksha. Theresidential houses ranged
from single room buildings to large estates, reflecting the
social status of their inhabitants. In the 7th and 8th
centuries, the hoses of the rich dominated the architecture of
the city. At the beginning of the 8th century, the spaces
between the houses were converted into passageways and often
covered with vaults. The houses of the rich became two-story
buildings with vaults over the room on the first floor. All
residential houses were covered with wall paintings and
woodcarvings. The larger houses consisted of halls with
four columns and benches along the walls. They were the most
important part of the houses and served religious purposes. More
than a third of the hoses had such reception halls. It is
here where the archaologists discovered many exceptional mural
paintings. These paintings date from the 5th to to the 8th
century and are considered the most important works of early
medieval art in Central Asia before the arrival of Islam. Most
houses had a dark vaulted room for storage and a spiral
staircase leading to the living quarters in the second floor.
The houses of the well-to-do population usually had a room with
a fire altar and a ceremonial hall decorated with wall paintings
and wood carvings. In the main hall, there was a niche up
to 4 m widr opposite the entrance with giant images of tutelary
gods and small pictures of the praying members of the household.
The center of the hall was marked by four wooden columns which
supported complex wooden structures with a dome on a square
foundation on the top. The hall was decorated with woodcarvings
in high relief and even with small statues of caryatids and
atlantes. The most common motif of the reliefs in the ceiling
were arched niches with figures of the gods, including the
sun-god in his chariot. The wall paintings on the other three
walls were much smaller than the gods facing the main entrance.
They formed two or three friezes depicting royal feasts, hunting
scenes, the heroic deeds of Rostam, local heroes, amazons
or persons from the Indian epic Mahabarata. The layout of the
Sogdian central hall is unique. The decorations show that the
Sogdian artist were familiar with the artistic and literary
traditions of different cultures, as Persia, Greece and even
India. The majority of the population observed some local
variation of Zoroastrianism, which is proved by the wide
distribution of ossuary funerals and fire-altars. There is,
however, some evidence of the presence of Christianity and
Buddhism and eventually even of the cult of Shiva.
Zoroastrianism was combined with cults of additional gods and
goddesses. Not all of these deities were of Iranian origin, as
can be seen from the cult of the Mesopotamian goddess Nana. The
iconography of these goods can be traced back to the Hellenistic
period, e.g. the image of a defeated goddess. It was also
influenced by Sasanian ideas of the royal attributes of gods and
observed some Hinduistic features as well. The iconography took
its final form in the 5th and 6th centuries. Each household had
its own divine protector, but all gods formed part of a single
pantheon, as can be seen from wall paintings depicting several
deities side by side. The three-headed god of the wind Veshparkar,
who resembles Shiva, and the four-handedNana riding on a
lion or seated on a throne in the shape of a lion can easiliy be
recognized. Altogether, more than 20 deities can be found on
small terracotta images, murals, woodcarvings and clay
figurines. The images of Nana, a god sitting on a throne in the
shape of a camel and of a god standing over a fallen demon are
most common. US$5.
Rudaki Museum (Republican History and Regional Study Museum)
This interesting museum
of local history has recently been rehabilitated and should not
be missed. Abu Abdullo Rudaki was a famous poet of the
10th century. He lived in Panjakent for a while and later became
the national hero of Tajikistan. Among the exhibits in the
museum are frescoes from the ancient city of Panjakent depicting
a banquet, a battle, and daily life scenes; statues of
Zoroastrian divinites and a wooden statue of a dancing woman.
Apart from showing artifacts and frescoes of the archeologial
site nearby the city, it also features exhibits from Sarazm,
a neolithic site a few kilometers further west. There excavators
found proof human settlement as old as 5500 years and - most
notably - the richly decorated remains of a young woman referred
to as the princess of Sarazm. The museum has 8 halls.
The first hall is devoted to the history and culture of
ancient Sarazm with exhibits illustrating the beginnings
of farming and city building in the area. The second hall shows
findings from Panjakent from the 5th to 8th cent AD. In the third
hall, artifacts from the period of the Somonid empire are at
display. The forth hall is devoted to Rudaki, the
founder of Tajik literature. The fifth hall shows objects
of Tajik ethnography: clothes, embroideries, copper and bronze
dishes, clothes from the 19th and 20th centuries. The sixth
hall refers to the establishment of the Soviet power in
Tajikistan, the seventh hall to the independence of
Tajikistan in 1991. In the eighth hall, animals of
Tajikistan are exhibited. US$10.
Olim Dodhko Mosque and Medressah,
A
Friday Mosque dating from the 18th and 19th centuries for up to
1500 people
Kainar Ato Spring.
According to the
legend, Ali, the desecendant of Mohammed, visited this
place which at this time accomodated only serpents. When Ali
came to Kainar Ato, he prayed, the snakes disappeared and a
spring was formed. Today, 6 water pumps work at Kainar Ato,
supplying water to about 2/3 of Panjakant's population.
Fan Mountains
You can do excellent treks in the
surrounding Fan
Mountains and
further up the Zeravshan Valley.
The Fannsky
Gory (Fan Mountains) are
one of Central Asia's most popular trekking areas. You can do a
day trip from Panjakent to the Seven
Lakes (Marquzor Lakes), about 60 km south of Panjakent. It
costs about US$ 40 to hire a car from Panjakent (2007). Anothe
favourite place is Iskander
Kul, a mountain lake about 25 km south of the Panjakent
Dushanbe road. There is, however, no public transport to the
lake. The former Soviet holiday camp offers accomodation for
20TJS (2007) and a great lakeside restaurant.
The lake is at an altitude of nearly 2200 m.