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.
Tiles and majolica
© Faqscl, CC BY-SA 3.0
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.
Secret of the blue city
Koshin, the glazed tile, is made from a special clay pressed into moulds, fired at high temperature, then painted and glazed. Tiles appeared in Central Asia in the late 12th or early 13th century, first on monuments in Samarkand, Bukhara and Kunya-Urgench. Under the Timurids the craft reached its peak, as masters gathered by Timur from across his empire sheathed entire portals and domes in colour.
Several techniques can be seen side by side. Shah-i-Zinda is famous for carved glazed terracotta — relief ornament under coloured glaze. The Registan and Gur-e-Amir show tile mosaic, in which geometric and floral patterns are assembled from individually cut pieces of coloured tile. In majolica the design is painted on white slip and glazed over, while the banna’i technique builds giant geometric patterns and inscriptions out of the brickwork itself, alternating glazed and plain bricks.
The restorers
By the 19th century many of the old secrets had been lost. In 1930 the Samarkand restoration workshop was set up inside the Tilya-Kori Madrasa to rediscover the original glaze colours, and later workshops in Samarkand and Tashkent began producing tiles close to the medieval ones. Parts of the domes and portals of the Registan, Bibi-Khanym, Gur-e-Amir and Shah-i-Zinda were restored by these craftsmen.
As you explore, ask your guide which sections are original and which are restored — knowing the difference makes the buildings even more rewarding.
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.
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.
