The Silk Road oasis of Merv — 6,000 years of civilisation buried in Turkmenistan's cotton desert
Mary is a city of 130,000 in southern Turkmenistan, in the Murghab River oasis that has supported settlement for at least 6,000 years, and its primary draw is ancient Merv — a UNESCO World Heritage Site 30km east that was one of the ancient world's largest cities and a key Silk Road hub from Achaemenid Persia through Seljuk Islam. Merv (also called Antiochia Margiana by the Greeks, then Marv al-Shahijan — 'the Queen of the World') preserves a layered palimpsest of five separate walled cities spanning from the Bronze Age to the 14th century, including the extraordinary Seljuk-era Sultan Sanjar…
Merv's Bronze Age settlement (Gonur Depe, 2300–1700 BC) predates even the Achaemenid Persian incorporation of the oasis into Satrapy of Margiana. Alexander the Great founded a Greek city here (Antiochia Margiana) and the city passed through Parthian, Sassanid, Arab, Samanid, and Seljuk hands — each adding a new walled enclosure to the existing palimpsest. The Seljuk Sultan Sanjar made Merv his capital in the 12th century, and the city's scholars, libraries, and trade networks stretched from the Mediterranean to India. Genghis Khan's 1221 destruction ended Merv's role as a major city; the curr…