Late Middle Ages · Central Asia · Culture

1339

Samarkand flourishes under Chagatai revival

1339

The oasis city on the Silk Road, recovering from Mongol internecine wars, regained its role as a crossroads of Persian scholarship and Turkic military power. Madrasas reopened, caravans resumed, and the city's blue-tiled architecture began to take the form that Timur would later magnify into imperial splendor. Persian poets and mathematicians returned to a city that once again rewarded learning.