Five cities side by side, the Sanjar mausoleum, and why all of it is mud brick.
Outside Mary, half an hour from the modern city, lies what UNESCO inscribed on the World Heritage list in 1999: the State Historical and Cultural Park «Ancient Merv». It is not one ruin but several cities standing side by side — each new one built not on top of the last but a little way off.
The oldest part is Erk Gala, a round citadel now reduced to an earth rampart the height of a three-storey house. Around it is Gyaur Gala of the Hellenistic period, then Sultan Gala — the Merv of the Seljuks, when the city was among the largest in the world. Apart from these stand the two Kyz Galas, the «maiden fortresses», with the corrugated walls you will hardly see anywhere else.
The principal building is the mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar, twelfth century: an enormous domed cube in the middle of an empty plain. It once stood inside a densely built city, and that is the hardest thing to picture while standing there.
**All of it is mud brick and clay.** That explains both the look and the fate: there was no stone in the oasis, so they built with what was underfoot, and rain and wind have been working on these walls for eight centuries. Merv therefore does not look like a classical city with columns — it looks like terrain. Anyone expecting postcards should adjust in advance; anyone who understands what they are looking at will find few equals in Central Asia.
Practical notes: there is almost no shade, the distances between sites are kilometres, and you move between them by car. Morning or evening is best, the middle of a summer day is worst. Without someone to explain where one city ends and the next begins, a good deal of the point is lost.