Panjakent day trip from Samarkand

To the east of Panjakent, on a road off the main highway, you’ll find the Mausoleum of Mukhammad Bashoro in a small village called Mazari Sharif. It was built here around the 11th or 12th centuries in honour of the Islamic scholar Mukhammad Bashoro that it’s named after, who was an expert in ‘khadises’.

Ancient Panjakent was founded here as early as the 5th century BC as part of the Sogdian civilisation. It was in the 5th century AD that it really began to flourish, though. The city would have grown significantly at that point, covering much of this elevated area that I’m wandering through. There would have been temples, fortresses, and large mansions for the wealthiest residents.

Panjakent market is bustling and I feel like I’ve been caught in a riptide of floral-clad women with headscarves, pulled by their movement through the ornate gate into the site. The morning rush is on and, across the market, plastic bags are being filled with fruits and vegetables, nuts and sweets

This elegant single-storey museum, with its white Doric columns and fine floral display, assigns a room to its namesake, Abu Abdullah Rudaki (858–941), the 'father of Persian poetry'. The museum is of more interest, however, for its display of textiles and costumes, the frescoes found at Ancient Penjikent and the Neolithic tools from nearby Sarazm

The most significant thing to see near Panjakent is Sarazm, the remains of a city even more ancient than the one founded here by the Sogdians. Sarazm was founded around 3500 BC and is most likely the oldest city in Central Asia. The people here became adept at agriculture and producing goods for trade, so it became an important an wealthy centre in the region.