SHAHRISABZ, UZBEKISTAN: AK-SARAY PALACE AND AMIR TIMUR

As we finished our visit to Kok Bumbaz Mosque in Shahrisabz, Uzbekistan, in the distance we noticed two crumbling towers. They turned out to be our next destination.

This is what remains of Ak-Saray, the Mongol conqueror Timur's summer palace and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000:

Of everything Timur built, Ak-Saray ("the White Palace") was planned to be the most magnificent. Construction began in about 1380 and took roughly 25 years to complete. According this this site, the exterior measurements of the entire palace are not known, but the main inner courtyard was about 400 x 800 feet. A football field is about 160 feet wide and 350 feet long, so the courtyard was bigger than four football fields!  If the courtyard was that enormous, imagine the size of the entire palace!

The entrance gate, the only part still standing, once towered 230 feet (over 20 stories) and was a symbol of Timur's power. Our guide had a drawing of what experts thought it looked like. It must have been stunning.

SHAHRISABZ, UZBEKISTAN: KOK GUMBAZ MOSQUE, DORUT TILAVAT MAUSOLEUM, AND THE JAHONGIR-OMAR SHEIKH MAUSOLEUM

Scheherazade, sometimes called Shahrazad, is the fictional wife of an Arabian sultan and the storyteller in One Thousand and One Nights, the book that contains the tales of Aladdin, Ali Baba, Sinbad, and others. What does that have to do Uzbekistan? Nothing, I think, except for the fact that the name of an Uzbek city we visited, Shahrisabz, sounds so much like Scheherazade/Shahrazad.  Scheherazade also looks like she belongs in Uzbekistan. (At least she does in this 19th century painting by Sophie Anderson.) I guess that's just my untrained ear. What do I know about Arabic? Nothing.  

Also, Shahrisabz (the city in Uzbekistan) has a mysterious aura, a sense of having walked into an enchanted land from a distant time. Indeed, the city was founded over 2,700 years ago, was conquered by Alexander the Great over 2,300 years ago, and was the place where Alexander met his wife Roxanna. It was the birthplace of Timur in 1336 and the site of much intrigue in the following years. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a flying carpet or a genii floating overhead.

Okay, maybe I would, but it's a pretty magical place all the same. 

We started at the Kok Gumbaz Mosque, built by Ulugbek (the grandson of Timur and a much nicer guy than his grandfather) in 1435 to honor his father. The unimaginative translation of "Kok Gumbaz" is "blue dome."

That's not paint on the dome--it is azure tiles. It looks like and airy, but the engineering that supports such heavy covering must be pretty complex. A light stripe containing excerpts from the Quran surahs runs around the base of the dome.

View from the back. Do you see the large vertical piece in front of the dome on the other side?