Uzbekistan, heirs to the Silk Road

The young republic of Uzbekistan, with its ancient urban cultural centres of Bukhara, Chiwa and Samarkand, is the heartland of the Silk Road. The artistic and cultural history of the region, through more than two millennia, is represented here in four main sections: Transoxiana from the fourth century BC to the arrival of Islam in the eighth century AD; Central Asia as a cultural and political centre of Islam in the eighth century until the fall of the Timurid empire at the beginning of the sixteenth century; Turkestan at the time of Uzbek-dominated khanates from the sixteenth century up to the Russian conquest and Russian Revolution; and Uzbekistan from Soviet rule until after the establishment of sovereignty.

The evolving history of the region is clearly explained in the context of its complex geography, together with analyses of the architecture, the art of the book, Islamic arts and crafts, and the rich variety of textiles of the region. The cultural history of this region is illustrated with pictures of archaeological finds and ethnographical objects from European and Uzbek museums and private collections, niany published for the first time.