Tamerlane (1336-1405), Turkmen Mongol conqueror, who established an empire extending from India to the Mediterranean Sea. The name Tamerlane, a European corruption of Timur Lang ("Timur the Lame") was given to him because his left side was partially disabled. Tamerlane was born April 10, 1336, at Kesh in Transoxiana (present-day Shakhrisyabz, Uzbekistan), and rose to prominence in the service of the Jagataid khan Tughluq Timur. Between 1364 and 1370 he won control of Transoxiana, and in the latter year declared the restoration of the empire of Genghis Khan, whom he falsely claimed as his ancestor. By 1394 he had conquered Iran, Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Georgia. In 1389-95 he fought and weakened the Khanate of the Golden Horde. In 1398 Tamerlane invaded India, where he captured Delhi and massacred its inhabitants. In 1401 he took Syria from the Mamelukes, and the following year defeated the Ottoman sultan Bayazid I. Tamerlane died on February 18, 1405, near Shymkent (in present-day Kazakstan) while leading an expedition against China, and was buried in Samarqand, his capital city. His mausoleum, the Gur-e Amir, is one of Samarqand's great architectural monuments. Although he was notorious for his cruelty in war and for the many atrocities committed by his armies, Tamerlane was also a lover of scholarship and the arts. His dynasty, the Timurids, which ruled Transoxiana and Iran until the early 16th century, was noted for its patronage of Turkish and Persian literature. One of his descendants, Babur, founded the Mughal dynasty of India in 1526. He is the protagonist of Christopher Marlowe's dramatic epic, Tamburlaine the Great (1590).

by Daniel C. Waugh, University of Washington

Samarkand is one of the oldest and most important cities amongst the many in the historic region of Central Asia known as Transoxiana. Located in the Zerafshan River valley, the city enjoys the benefits of abundant natural resources and occupies as well a key place on the trade routes of Central Asia. The Zerafshan is fed by the snow melt from mountains to the south and east (shown here from the air) and flows into the Oxus (Amu Darya). To travel upstream just above the fertile valley floor (second photo), brings one to the historic city of Panjikent. Downstream is Bukhara. Those who ruled Samarkand developed a complex network of irrigation channels, as shown in this map. As we know from the authors of historic accounts, its surroundings also provided pastureland, something that is evident even today if we look south from the highlands to the east of the city.

The tenth-century Iranian author Istakhri, who travelled in Transoxiana, provides a vivid description of the natural riches of the region he calls "Smarkandian Sogd":

I know no place in it or in Samarkand itself where if one ascends some elevated ground one does not see greenery and a pleasant place, and nowhere near it are mountains lacking in trees or a dusty steppe....Samakandian Sogd...[extends] eight days travel through unbroken greenery and gardens....The greenery of the trees and sown land extends along both sides of the river [Sogd]...and beyond these fields is pasture for flocks. Every town and settlement has a fortress...It is the most fruitful of all the countries of Allah; in it are the best trees and fruits, in every home are gardens, cisterns and flowing water...

While settlement in the region goes well back into pre-historic times, by the seventh century before the Common Era (BCE or B.C.), the town seems to have housed a substantial center of craft production and already boasted an extensive irrigation system. It was one of the easternmost administrative centers for Achaemenid Persia and had a citadel and strong fortifications. Alexander the Great knew it as Maracanda; at the time when it submitted to him in 329 BCE, the city occupied some 13 sq. km. Damaged during a rebellion which Alexander had to suppress, the city revived; in the third and second centuries BCE, it contained some very impressive buildings. Alexander's conquests introduced into Central Asia Classical Greek culture; at least for a time the Greek models were followed closely by the local artisans. The Greek legacy lived on in the various "Graeco-Bactrian" kingdoms of the area and the Kushan Empire of the first centuries of the Common Era whose territories extended well down into what is today Pakistan and India. During the Kushan era the city declined though; it did not really revive until the fifth century CE.

The ethnically Iranian Sogdians who lived in Samarkand and its region played a key role in the commerce along the Silk Road even though they never established a single strong state and more often than not were subjects of powerful Inner Asian empires. As early as Han times, when the Chinese first recorded their impressions of Inner Asia, the Sogdians had a reputation as being talented merchants. Sogdian colonies were established in places such as Dunhuang, one of the important nodes in the trade route. Soghdian letters dating from 313-314 CE have been discovered there; they provide evidence about a network of Soghdian merchants in various places in China, whose commercial interests included precious metals, spices and cloth. The "home office" for one of the letter writers was Samarkand. Sogdian inscriptions on the rocks in the valleys of northern Pakistan testify to their activity on the routes south into India. Soghdian merchants also went west and seem to have been involved in the development of new routes for the Silk trade with Byzantium in the sixth century. We know that some of the exotic products popular later in Tang China were imported from Samarkand. The famous Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang passed through the city in the early 630s and recorded about it the following:

The country of Sa-mo-kien is about 1600 or 1700 li [one li=430 m.] in circuit...The capital of the country is 20 li or so in circuit. It is completely enclosed by rugged land and very populous. The precious merchandise of many foreign countries is stored up here. The soil is rich and productive, and yields abundant harvests. The forest trees afford a thick vegetation, and flowers and fruits are plentiful. The Shen horses are bred here. The inhabitants are skilful in the arts and trades beyond those of other countries. The climate is agreeable and temperate. The people are brave and energetic...

The museum located today on the hill known as Afrasiab, the site of the ancient city, contains numerous examples of pottery from the period of the city's history prior to the Muslim conquest.

When the Arabs invaded Central Asia in the early eighth century, the last of the Sogdian rulers of the many small states in the Zerafshan Valley fled upriver from Panjikent. Amid the ostensibly stark ruins of Panjikent are houses whose walls were decorated with murals portraying a religious ceremonies, scenes from the famous Persian epics and much more evidence of the cosmopolitan cultural connections of the last Sogdian state. The last refuge of the Sogdians was a fortress upstream at Mt. Mug, where archaeologists have unearthed a treasure trove of Sogdian documents attesting to the sophistication of their administration and legal system.

In Samarkand itself, even after the Arab conquest, the center of the city continued to be located on Afrasiab, seen here as a dusty mound in the distance as one looks west toward the modern city. A sense of its topography is provided by this model of the ruins, viewed from the south, and a schematic map shows the rings of fortifications and the ponds and canal system from some time in the Islamic period. P.D. Voronikhin's drawing reconstructing the upper fortified area of the city provides a vivid impression of a very substantial town. Excavations have uncovered the foundations and lower parts of the walls of what appears to have been the palace of the pre-Muslim Sogdian rulers

As in Panjikent, the walls were covered with brilliant murals, whose fragments shown here seem to illustrate a wedding procession, attended by ambassadors bearing gifts, a diplomatic ceremony, in which the figure at the head of the procession may be the Sogdian ruler, and scenes from the royal hunt. Another painting shows a Chinese princess being conveyed across a river in a boat. In the first two examples, following photographs of the actual paintings in the Afrasiab Museum are modern artists' reproductions of the images which give a clearer sense of what is depicted. The robes of the important personages reflect the influence of Sasanian (Iranian) designs.

Two examples from other palaces in Transoxiana from this same period (the images are reproduction paintings, filmed in substandard light in the Samarkand museum) provide an additional sense of the cultural connections of these prosperous Central Asian states.

There is considerable evidence in the paintings, other archaeological material and written sources concerning the fact that several religions were practiced in Afrasiab. The excavations have revealed fire altars from private homes and fragments of ossuaries (the examples of the latter here are from different sites in Central Asia). Such evidence points clearly to the importance of Zoroastrianism, which we know was widespread especially in areas which had been under Persian control. Xuanzang's biographer reports that during the monk's visit in 631, Zoroastrian priests chased two of his Buddhist followers. Although Xuanzang claimed some success in preaching Buddhism, there were apparently only two Buddhist temples left in the city at that time. We know, however, that Soghdians were among the translators of Buddhist scriptures in China, presumably because they had linguistic skills honed by life at the crossroads of major trade routes connecting China with India via Central Asia.

It seems clear that the Soghdians were quite eclectic in their religious tastes, since motifs on some of the ossuaries mix Zoroastrian and Christian symbolism. In fact there was a Christian Nestorian bishopric in Samarkand as early as the sixth century. The wall paintings at Panjikent depict various goddesses and religious scenes, some even showing influences of Hinduism and others including local Central Asian deities not connected with one of the other major regions. During the eighth century, because of their important economic role in the Uighur state which rose to power along the northern borders of Tang China, Sogdians may well have been the ones who persuaded the Uighur rulers to convert to Manichaeism. Archaeologists have found in the Uighur cities Manichaean and Nestorian texts written in Sogdian.

For some time after the Muslim conquest of the early eighth century, these eclectic local religious traditions remained the dominant ones. There is considerable evidence that rebellions against Arab rule often were connected with the emergence of local religious leaders who seem to have drawn heavily on Zoroastrian and Manichaean traditions. Firm Arab control in the region was not established before the middle of the eighth century (CE), and a century after that, Samarkand came under the control first of the Samanid and then the Karakhanid states. The Samanids, who were of Iranian origin, established Bukhara as their capital, and it was under their rule (to about the end of the ninth century) that the cities of Transoxiana became major centers of Muslim learning. A group of Samanid memorial stones can be seen today on a platform just in back of the Registan. Like most successful rulers of the city, the Samanids invested in the irrigation system. A reconstruction of the possible appearance of one of the major aqueducts into the city can be seen on the left. Unfortunately, little remains of the architecture from this period in Samarkand. Fragments of a Karakhanid-era minaret and mausoleum may be seen in the oldest of the shrines of the Shah-i Zinde (see the photographs and discussion there).

The Persian chronicler Juvaini's encomium to Samarkand and other Central Asian cities reflects his dismay at the destruction wrought by the Mongols when Chingis Khan invaded the area in 1220. Only fragments of the walls remained, such as these (on the right in the picture), which formed the southern boundary of the city near the mausoleum complex of Shah-i Zinde.

Many of the Central Asian cities quickly recovered from the Mongol invasion. According to Juvayni, no admirer of the Mongols, Bukhara was one, although by the early 1330s the famous Arab traveler Ibn Battuta noted "at the present time its mosques, colleges and bazaars are in ruins, all but a few"--the result apparently of subsequent wars. Ibn Battuta also visited Samarkand, "one of the greatest and finest of cities, and most perfect of them in beauty," where he similarly noted that "there were formerly great palaces on [the river's] bank, and constructions which bear witness to the lofty aspirations of the townsfolk, but most of this is obliterated, and most of the city itself has also fallen into ruin. It has no city wall, and no gates, and there are gardens inside it."

The real rebuilding of Samarkand as a great city had to await the decision by Timur (Tamerlane) to make it his capital beginning in the 1370s. The Spanish ambassador to Tamerlane's court, Clavijo, describes how Tamerlane "gave orders...that a street should be built to pass right through Samarqand, which should have shops opened on either side of it in which every kind of merchandise should be sold, and this new street was to go from one side of the city through to the other side, traversing the heart of the township." He wanted results immediately and those assigned to the task, with their lives at stake,

began at speed, causing all the houses to be thrown down along the line that his Highness had indicated for the passage of the new street. No heed was paid to the complaint of persons to whom the property here might belong, and those whose houses thus were demolished suddenly had to quit with no warning, carrying away with them their goods and chattels as best they might. No sooner had all the houses been thrown down than the master builders came and laid out the broad new street, erecting shops on the one side and opposite, placing before each a high stone bench that was topped with white slabs. Each shop had two chambers, front and back, and the street way was arched over with a domed roof in which were windows to let the light through...At intervals down the street were erected water fountains.

The main axis of the Timurid city stretched southwest from Afrasiab, passing the Bibi Khanum Mosque and Mausoleum complexes, then the Registan, and ending near the Gur-i Mir Mausoleum. The development of this urban center continued apace under Tamerlane's grandson Ulughbeg, who ruled the city for much of the first half of the fifteenth century until he was assassinated in 1449. Ulughbeg is well known for his scientific investigations, supported by the Observatory he built on the hills to the east of Afrasiab and the madrasa (school) he erected on the Registan.

The major architectural ensembles of Samarkand, notably those from the Timurid period, will be explored on separate web pages. The first three, on the Shah-i Zinde, Ulughbeg and his observatory, and the Bibi Khanum Mosque, are already available on Silk Road Seattle. Pages will be added for the Gur-i Mir Mausoleum and the Registan.

Recommended additional web resources:
For a good survey of Timurid history, see the University of Calgary History Department's pages from its "Islamic World to 1600." Historic photos of Samarkand and other cities in Uzbekistan can be found on the UNESCO Virtual Memory of Central Asia pages. For a documented overview of "Timurid Architecture in Samarkand" but one not illustrated with many photos, see Mark Dickens' Oxus Central Asia Site.

Copyright © 2001 Daniel C. Waugh.
Silk Road Seattle is a project of the Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington

Bibi Hanum 1969 before the main ivan collapsed and reconstruction began

The stupendous scale of important buildings erected for Timur was a bold public statement of his pretensions as a ruler and a distinguishing characteristic of Timurid architecture. The earliest of his grandiose structures was his palace at Shahr-i Sabz, built beginning in 1380 and probably the work of masons from Khwarezm. Since little has survived of the building, we are fortunate to have a description of it by the Spanish ambassador Clavijo, who passed through Shahr-i Sabz on his way to Samarkand in 1403. Yet even the truncated fragment of the palace so dominates the surrounding town that it can be seen on a clear day from the distant mountains. In the early 1390s, Timur had erected over the grave of Ahmad Yasavi, founder of one of the most important Sufi orders in the early 12th century, a massive new shrine, which is reasonably well preserved to this day. It appears to have been the work of architects brought from Shiraz in southwestern Iran. The most striking architectural feature of both these structures is their main portals, which have lofty iwans (arched porches), a feature which goes back to ancient Persian architecture and which was prominent in the architecture of Ilkhanid Iran, to which Tamerlane turned for inspiration. The Ahmad Yasavi mausoleum had interior furnishings on a correspondingly massive scale, including a bronze cauldron so large that a special railway car had to be built to transport it to Leningrad in the 1930s.

The Bibi Khanum Mosque, built in Samarkand between 1399 and 1404, commemorates Timur's wife. She was buried in a tomb located in a madrasa complex just across the main road which leads from the old city of Afrasiab to the center of the Timurid city at the Registan. (The tomb is currently being restored.) A contemporary chronicler relates that Timur brought in architects from Iran and India for the project (he had sacked Delhi in 1398) and used ninety-five elephants to haul construction material. One of the models for the building likely was the great mosque erected in Sultaniyya by the Ilkhanid (Mongol) ruler Uljaytu. As Blair and Bloom suggest, "Timur's mosque was designed not only to continue Iranian imperial tradition, but also to symbolize his conquest of the world."

Clavijo wrote in some detail about the final stages of what apparently was the construction of the Bibi Khanum (even though he identifies the dedicatee differently). Here we have one of several tales about Timur's personal involvement in his projects and his apparent impatience with architects who seem to have lacked his grandiose aspirations regarding his buildings' chief façades.

The Mosque which Timur had caused to be built in memory of the mother of his wife the Great Khanum seemed to us the noblest of all those we visited in the city of Samarqand, but no sooner had it been completed than he began to find fault with its entrace gateway, which he now said was much too low and must forthwith be pulled down. Then the workmen began to dig pits to lay the new foundations, when in order that the piers might be rapidly rebuilt his Higness gave out that he imself would take charge to direct the labor for the one pier of the new gateway while he laid it on two of the lords of his court, his special favorites, to see to the foundations on the other part. Thus all should see whether it was he or those other two lords who first might bring this business to its proper conclusion. Now at this season Timur was already weak in health, he could no longer stand for long on his feet, or mount his horse, having always to be carried in a litter. It was therefore in his litter that every morning he had himself brought to the place, and he would stay there the best part of the day urging on the work. He would arrange for much meat to be cooked and brought, and then he would order them to throw portions of the same down to the workmen in the foundations, as though, one should cast bones to dogs in a pit, and a wonder to all he even with his own hands did this. thus he urged on their labour: and at times would have coins thrown down to the masons when especially they worked to his satisfaction. Thus the building went on day and night until at last a time came when it had perforce to stop--as was also the case in the matter of making the street [for the new bazaar]--on account of the winter snows which began to fall. (LeStrange translation, pp. 280-281).

The finished building was huge--109x167 meters. In form, it copies the four-iwan mosques known already for two centuries in Iran, but it the placement of cupolas on the side iwans was an innovation. Although there is some debate over their original fom, around the courtyard of the mosque were single-story "galleries" supported by columns and with repetitive small domes over each bay. Studies done half a century ago enabled Sh. Ratiia to propose his idea of how the building might originally have looked. The fourth picture in this sequence shows a model of the reconsruction of the mosque, now on display in the Samarkand museum.

As had become typical in Timurid buildings, there was abundant use of different kinds of tile work over much of the exterior surface.

Some of the most innovative and impressive features of Timurid buildings unfortunately cannot be seen from the outside. The domes tended to be double (as in this case) or even triple, with ingenious devices for connecting the "shells" and providing them with stability. The vaults supporting the domes from below were not only structurally complex but dazzingly decorated with traditional Islamic "stalactite" (muqarnas). Timur's grandson and successor in Samarkand, Ulugh Beg, was a major builder in his own right; obviously he made his contribution to the main mosque in the form of the oversized Koran stand which was placed first in the domed sanctuary and then moved to the center of the courtyard. Its length is some 230 cm.; while we do not have a Timurid Koran quite of that size, there is one whose page height is nearly 180 cm. that might in fact have been used here in the Bibi Khanum. In the case of the Bibi Khanum, it may be that Timur's ambitions exceeded the possible, for by some time in the fifteenth century the domes were already collapsing. (An interesting analogy is the great Cathedral of Sancta Sopia in Istanbul, built with an unusually broad and flat dome, quite different in style and technique from Timur's, a dome which was in fact so daring that it collapsed soon after the building was completed and had to be re-designed somewhat more conservatively.) Probably well before the late nineteenth century, the mosque had decayed to a state close to what was photographed then, with the arches of the two great iwans crumbling but still in place, and the rest of the building in ruins.

By 1969, when I first visited Samarkand, the state of the building had reached its nadir, as this photograph taken from the Afrasiab cemetary shows. Scaffolding was being erected to save the remaining iwan in front of the ruined main dome. The plan shows all that was left, but even in ruins, the overpowering size of the building can be sensed on entering the main portal.

Since then, systematic restoration has been underway, given some impetus by the proclamation of Uzbek independence in 1991 and the officially sponsored "Timur-mania" which has been part of the search for a "usable past" in keeping with nationalist goals. In connection with this, there was a major celebration the midpoint in Samarkand's third historical millenium in 1996. All of the Timurid monuments were being feverishly (and apparently not always wisely) restored in that year for the occasion. We can see the stages in the progressive rebuilding of the Bibi Khanum from several comparisons.

First, the main dome, in 1969 and again in 1979.

Then, the side iwan from the inside in 1979 and from the outside, in back of the spice sellers in the adjoining market, in 1991.

By 1999, the façade of the main iwan had been completed and looked like this:

Finally, it is of interest to compare the overall view, from the Afrasiab cemetary, in 1969, 1991, 1996, and 1999.

-- Daniel C. Waugh

References:

1) Sheila S. Blair, Jonathan M. Bloom, The Art and Architecture of Islam 1250-1800 (Pelican History of Art) (New Haven and London: Yale Univ. Pr., 1994), ch. 4.

2) Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, Embassy to Tamerlane 1403-1406, tr. Guy le Strange (New York and London: Harper, 1928), esp. Ch. 15.

3) Sh. E. Ratiia, Mechet Bibi-khanym v Samarkande : issledovanie i opyt restavratsii (Moscow, 1950).

Ulugh Beg was the oldest son of Shahrukh, born in the city of Sultaniyah during his grandfather Timur's (Tamerlane's) campaign in northern Iran in 1394. At age 4 he accompanied his grandfather as far as Kabul, on the campaign that went on to take Delhi; almost immediately after the Indian campaign, he joined Tamerlane's campaign to the west which resulted in the defeat of the Ottoman ruler Bayezid I at Ankara in 1402. As Tamerlane was preparing to invade China, he celebrated the marriages of several of his grandsons, among them Ulughbeg (then age 10), who also was designated to rule over a significant portion of Moghulistan (the region encompassing part of the Tien Shan Mountains and NW Xinjiang), which, of course, was yet to be conquered. It is likely that Ulugh Beg was one of the princes seen by the Spanish ambassador Clavijo when he visited Tamerlane's court in 1403-1404.

Tamerlane's death in early 1405 not only cancelled the invasion of China but ushered in a period of civil strife in which the young Ulugh Beg took an active part. When his father, Shahrukh, finally managed to regain control over Transoxiana, he appointed Ulugh Beg as the regent there. The latter assumed his full responsibilities in 1411, although he continued to be subordinate to his father, who ruled the empire from Herat. At Shahrukh's death in 1447, Ulugh Beg succeeded him, but survived only two years as an independent ruler before being overthrown and beheaded in 1449.

Although for a time in the mid-1420s Ulugh Beg's armies waged a successful war for control of parts of Moghulistan (including Kashgar), increasingly he seems to have devoted himself to scholarly pursuits and patronage of the arts. In 1417-1420 he had a large madrasa (school) built, which still stands on the Registan in the center of Samarkand. The Timurid founder of the Moghul Empire in the early sixteenth century, Babur, describes what this complex of buildings was like then (only the school has survived):

Amongst Ulugh Beg's buildings inside the town are a college and a hospice (khanaqah). The dome of the hospice is very large: few so large are known anywhere else in the world. Near these two buildings he constructed an excellent hot bath...; he had the pavements in this made of all sorts of stone. There is no bath like this in Khurasan or anywhere else in Samarkand....To the south of the college is his mosque, known as the "Carved Mosque" because its ceiling and walls are all covered with carved islimi and pictures made of inlaid woods...

Babur goes on to describe Ulugh Beg's observatory (see below) and some of the splendid gardens and pavilions that he had built, one of them apparently decorated with porcelain specially ordered from China. His conscious efforts to honor his grandfather included donation of the huge Koran stand that can still be seen in the Bibi Khanum Mosque and placement of of a striking jade cenotaph above Tamerlane's grave in the Gur-i Amir mausoleum. There is reason to believe that this huge block of jade came as booty from one of Ulugh Beg's campaigns in Moghulistan in the 1420s. Ulugh Beg was laid to rest in the Gur-i Mir at the feet of his grandfather (in the photo, Ulugh Beg's grave is in the foreground; Tamerlane's behind).

While the achievements of his reign were many, he is probably best remembered for his scientific contributions. The madrasa became a major center of learning in the Islamic world, whose influence spread widely and lasted beyond Ulugh Beg's death, at which time some of the scholars he had supported left Samarkand for capitals such as Istanbul which promised more stability. The first director of his observatory was Qazizadeh Rumi, who had in fact come to Central Asia from Anatolia and was one of Ulugh Beg's teachers. Tradition has it that he is buried the elegant double-domed tomb

The tradition of Islamic science upon which Ulugh Beg and his scholars drew had long been valued by the rulers of Inner Asia. For example, the famous Mongol Emperor Khubilai Khan, staffed his new observatory in Beijing (shown on the left) with Muslim scientists. Muslim scholars made important contributions in mathematics (as is well known, our word "algebra" and the mathematics it embodies come from Arabic treatises). In astronomy, they drew heavily on the legacy of Classical Greece and Rome. One concern of royal astronomers was with calendars and astrological readings of heavenly signs (the boundary between astronomy and astrology was not clearcut as it is today). Underlying such "practical" applications was serious measurement and study of the movement of heavenly bodies; it is in this area that Ulugh Beg made some of his most important contributions. The observatory built at Maragha in the late thirteenth century for the Mongol Ilkhanid rulers of Iran was probably the most important direct influence on the Samarkand observatory.

His observatory was built beginning around 1420 on a hill to the north of Samarkand. Since it was destroyed within a few generations of his death, by the twentieth century no one knew its exact location. All that remains of the building, now excavated by archaeologists, are the foundations and the lower part of the largest of its scientific instruments, a huge "sextant." There is a small museum with exhibits about Ulugh Beg and his scientific achievements; one can contemplate there a bust sculpted on the basis of the study of his remains.

Babur described the building as it still stood in the early sixteenth century:

Another of Ulugh Beg Mirza's fine buildings is an observatory, that is, an instrument for writing astronomical tables. this stands three storeys high, on the skirt of the Kohik upland. By its means the Mirza worked out the Gurkhani Tables, now used all over the world instead of earlier such compilations....

One modern reconstruction of the building's appearance is shown here.

The so-called "sextant" obviously would have extended well above the ground (as the drawing shows) and likely was closer to being a quadrant. As Krisciunas points out in his interesting discussion of the instrument, it "was by far the largest meridian instrument ever built." Fragments of the curved measuring track have survived with markings for around 20 degrees; this is about the highest point that observations likely would have been made. The "sextant" would have been used to measure the angle of elevation of major heavenly bodies, especially at the time of the winter and summer solstices. Light from the given body, passing through a controlled opening, would have shone on the curved track, which is marked very precisely with degrees and minutes. "It could achieve a resolution of several seconds of arc--on the order of a six-hundredth of a degree, or the diameter of an American penny at a distance of more than half a kilometer" (Krisciunas). It is not clear whether more than the sun and moon could have been measured in this fashion, since planets, for example, would not have cast sufficient light. The observatory was equipped with a variety of other instruments, which probably accounted for the largest part of its scientific measurement. While only written lists (not the actual instruments) have survived, one can at least get a feel for what some might have been like (among them armillary spheres) from those to be seen today atop Khubilai Khan's observatory in Beijing.

One of the most important measurements carried out by Ulugh Beg's astronomers was the obliquity of the ecliptic. The ecliptic is the circular path described by the the sun in the course of a year, and its obliquity is the angle at which it cuts the equator. Establishing this precisely is important for a variety of other astronomical measurements and calendrical calculations. The astronomers in the classical world had errors on the order of 7'-10'. Arab astronomers achieved for the most part much greater precision; in the case of Ulugh Beg, the error was only -0'32". His results for the calculation of the movement of the planets are also impressively close to those obtained by modern means. Some consider his most significant achievement to be the compilation of a catalogue of the stars and their locations. This was the first such catalogue based on new, direct observation since that complied some 1600 years earlier by the important Greek astronomer Hipparchus. Our appreciation for Ulugh Beg's work increases when we remember that he was working nearly two centuries prior to the invention of the telescope.

His work eventually became known in Europe, with the publication in London in 1650 of a Latin translation of his "Chronology," and fifteen years later the first of many European editions of his star tables. As Krisciunas points out, the impact on European astronomy was slight though, given the advances that had been made prior to the time when Ulugh Beg's work became known. The Samarkand observatory was much more important for its influence on astronomy in Mughal India. That said, Ulugh Beg

was certainly the most important observational astronomer of the 15th century. He was one of the first to advocate and build permanently mounted astronomical instruments. His catalogue of 1018 stars (some sources count 1022) was the only such undertaking carried out between the times of Cladius Ptolemy (ca. 170 A.D.) and Tycho Brahe (ca. 1600). And...his attitude towards scientific endeavors was surprisingly modern. (Krisciunas)

-- Daniel C. Waugh

References:

1) Aydin Sayili, The Observatory in Islam and Its Place in the General History of the Observatory (Ankara, 1960), Ch. VIII, pp. 260-289.

2)Kevin Krisciunas, "Ulugh Beg's Zij," in H. B. Paksoy, ed., Central Asian Monuments (Istanbul, 1992). A professional astronomer's assessment, with extensive bibliography.

3) Iz istorii epokhi Ulugbeka (Tashkent, 1965).

4) Bernhard du Mont, "Ulugh Beg: Astronom und Herrscher in Samarkand," Sterne und Weltraum, 2002, Nos. 9-10, pp. 38-46. The first of two beautifully illustrated articles on Ulugh Beg by German astronomers; published in a high-quality popular astronomy journal.

5) Heiner Schwan, "Die Tabellen von Ulugh Beg: Die Sternkataloge des Ptolemäus, Ulugh Beg und Tycho Brahe im Vergleich," Sterne und Weltraum, 2002, Nos. 9-10, pp. 48-51.

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