Afrasiyab: Marakanda and Sogdian Samarkand

The loess plateau of Afrasiyab holds the city Alexander the Great took as Marakanda in 329 BC, later the chief city of the Sogdians, whose merchants carried much of the Silk Road trade. A 7th-century palace mural shows envoys from China, Korea and beyond at the court of King Varkhuman. Arab armies took the city in 712, and the Mongols destroyed it in 1220.