Samarkand paper
Creamy paper made by hand from mulberry bark and burnished with stone — the writing material of Islam’s golden age, revived in the village of Konigil.
Ganch carving
Snow-white patterns carved in ganch, a mix of gypsum and clay, and the gilded kundal of Tilya-Kori — the inner world of Samarkand’s monuments.
© LBM1948, CC BY-SA 4.0
What ganch is
Ganch is a creamy-white building material made by firing a natural mixture of gypsum (40–70 per cent) and clay. It sets more slowly than alabaster, so it can be plastered onto a wall or ceiling and carved at leisure. Because it dislikes damp, it is used mostly indoors, with the finest grade, gul ganch, reserved for decorative work.
There are two techniques. In oʻymakori the pattern is cut in situ into fresh plaster; in qolipaki the ornament is cast in advance on ganch panels and then fixed to the wall, allowing a design to be repeated many times. Mineral pigments can be added for coloured decoration.
Where to see it in Samarkand
The summer mosque at the foot of Shah-i-Zinda was built in 1910 by the Samarkand masters Mahmud and Muhammad Siddiq, its walls covered in carved ganch. Inside the mosque of the Tilya-Kori Madrasa on the Registan, walls and dome are decorated in kundal — gilding laid over relief ornament. A repair in 1885 painted the gold over; in 1930 the Samarkand restoration workshop was founded in Tilya-Kori itself, and in 1970 its craftsmen studied the surviving fragments and restored the gilded scheme.
Today Samarkand’s ganch carvers restore monuments and decorate new mosques, wedding halls and private homes. To see how delicate the material can be, step inside the Tilya-Kori mosque.
Crafts
Crafts
Silk carpets
Hand-knotted carpets of naturally dyed silk — in Samarkand you can follow the whole journey from cocoon to finished rug in a single workshop.
Suzani and embroidery
Bold red and black rosettes on a white ground — the Samarkand suzani; alongside it, Urgut’s embroidered skullcaps and the work of today’s needlewomen.
Ceramics
From Afrasiyab bowls lettered in Kufic script to the glazed platters of Urgut’s potters, Samarkand ceramics span more than a thousand years.
Woodcarving
From the patterned doors of Gur-e-Amir and Rukhobod to the pillars of neighbourhood houses, Samarkand’s carvers have cut geometry and arabesque into wood for centuries.
Tiles and majolica
The carved glazed terracotta of Shah-i-Zinda, the mosaics of the Registan portals and the tiles of Gur-e-Amir’s dome — the craft behind Samarkand’s famous blue.
