Коне-Ургенч: Древняя столица Хорезма

City in north Turkmenistan on the site of the former capital of Khwarazm

Konye Urgench (; کهنه گرگانج, Kuhna Gurgānj, literally "Old Gurgānj"), also known as Old Urgench or Urganj, is a city of about 30,000 inhabitants in north Turkmenistan, just south from its border with Uzbekistan. It is the site of the ancient town of Gurgānj, which contains the ruins of the capital of Khwarazm. Its inhabitants deserted the town in the early eighteenth century in order to develop a new settlement, and Konye Urgench has remained undisturbed ever since. In 2005, the ruins of Old Urgench were inscribed on the UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites.

Located on the south side of the Amu Darya River, Old Ürgenç was situated on one of the most important medieval paths: the Silk Road, the crossroad of western and eastern civilisations. It is one of the most important archaeological sites in Turkmenistan, lying within a vast zone of protected landscape and containing a large number of well preserved monuments, dating from the 11th to the 16th centuries. They comprise mosques, the gates of a caravanserai, fortresses, mausoleums and a minaret, and the influence of their architectural style and craftsmanship reached Iran, Afghanistan and the later architecture of the Mughal Empire of 16th century India.

Atanyyazow explains, "In the works of Chinese historians, the name Yue Gyan, which occurs in Georgian forms in the works of Arab scholars of the 10th century, was used in the form of Gurganj, a native of Khorezm and j, according to Yakut, mean[s] just like the word abat, i. e., "village" and "city" Given the ancient name of the word Gurgen , then the toponym of Gurganj has the meaning of "Gurgen city", "Gurgen city of the people". Later, the name Gurganj began to be used in the form of Urgench." To what Gurgen or Gurgan refer, however, remains unexplained.

The exact dates when Kunya Urgench was founded remain uncertain, but archaeological finds at the Kyrkmolla Hill (one of the main fortresses at the site) reveal that the town already had a strong structure in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Some of the earliest records show that Khwarezm was conquered by the Arabs in 712, who took the capital city of Kath of the Iranic Khwarazmian Afrighid dynasty. The city rose to prominence between the 10th and 14th centuries as the Khwarezmian capital, replacing Kath. Gurjanu served as an important trading center, competing in fame and population with many other Central Asian cities, such as Bukhara. Djordjania or Jorjania was the "second capital" of the country. It was on the Wadak canal which seems to be the east end of the Kunya Darya which seems to be the river bed that now leads to the Sarykamysh Lake. Just east of the town was the Gurganj Dam that irrigated the area and blocked the flow of the Oxus into the Caspian Sea. In 1221 both town and dam were destroyed by the Mongols and the surrounding area became a marsh. Konya Urgench was soon built on or near the site of Jorjania. In 1221, Genghis Khan destroyed the city in the Mongol invasion of Central Asia, in what is considered to be one of the bloodiest massacres in human history. Most if not all the ancient Iranic Khwarazmian people were killed or pushed out, paving the way for the Turkification of Khwarazm. Despite the devastating effects of the invasion, the city was revived and it regained its previous status. It was described by the 14th century Berber traveller Ibn Battuta as "the largest, greatest, most beautiful and most important city of the Turks. It has fine bazaars and broad streets, a great number of buildings and abundance of commodities". In 1373, Timur attacked Khwarezm, and its ruler Yusef Sufi of the Sufi Dynasty surrendered to Timur. In 1379, Yusef Sufi rebelled against Timur, who sacked Urgench, and Yusef Sufi was killed. In 1388, the Sufi dynasty of Urgench again revolted against Timur; this time Timur razed Urgench to the ground and massacred its population, destroyed the city's irrigation system, and had barley planted over the ground where the city had once stood, leaving only one mosque standing. This, coupled with the sudden change of the Amu Darya River's course, constituted the beginning of Kunya Urgench's decline until the 16th century, when it was replaced as a regional capital by Khiva and was ultimately abandoned. The area was later inhabited by the Turkmen people from the early 19th century, but they mostly developed outside the old town, utilising the latter as a graveyard. However, this use has now stopped, and efforts have been made to remove the decaying grave stones that can be encountered at the site. The new town of Urgench was developed to the southeast, in present day Uzbekistan. Some of the first archeological research on the old city site was conducted by Alexander Yakubovsky in 1929.

The urban layout of Kunya Urgench has been lost and only certain monuments remain standing to this day. These are authentic and rich examples of fine architecture and building traditions existing for centuries. The level of conservation varies amongst the buildings, and the most substantial restoration work has been carried out in the past thirty years, during the soviet era, using traditional methods and materials.

The Kutlug Timur minaret is perhaps the most striking structure here. It dates to the 11th and 12th centuries, and measures 60 meters in height, making it the highest monument in the park. Its diameter is 12 meters at its base, and 2 at the top. On the basis of its decorative brickwork, including Kufic inscriptions, the minaret is thought to be an earlier construction, only restored by Kutlug Timur around 1330.

Named after Turabek Khanum, the wife of Kutlug Timur (ruled between 1321 and 1336), this structure is located at the northern part of ancient Gurgench. It is remarkable for its elegant design and stunning tile decoration, and it is a highly sophisticated work of architecture, both in its conceptualisation of spaces and in its engineering. Both are fully utilised in a conscious way to achieve a visual, aesthetic and spiritual effect. The original building was composed of two chambers: a large domed hall and a smaller one behind it. The large chamber is twelve sided on the exterior and hexagonal on the interior, being preceded by an entrance portal and a vestibule. One of the most impressive architectural features of the mausoleum is the circular dome covering the main hall, whose surface is covered in colourful mosaic which forms intricate ornamental patterns consisting of flowers and stars, creating a visual metaphor for the heavens. No comparable contemporary parallels can be found at Urgench, as some of the architectural features, such as the decorations mentioned above, do not appear in other monuments built during the lifetime of Turabek Khanum, around 1330. Thus, it is difficult to date the building so early. These features do, however, appear in Central Asia later, during the reign of Timur, a warlord of Turco Mongol descent. New technologies, such as mosaic faience, show up in Timur's earliest buildings, such as the Aq Saray palace in Shahrisabz, in Uzbekistan, which was begun in 1379 but was still unfinished in 1404.

Kyrkmolla is a mound which used to constitute a fortress. It is located in the north eastern outskirts of Gurgench. It is particularly significant as the earliest ceramics discovered at the site, dating back to the 5th century BC, were located here. It is protected by a thick mud brick wall which dates back to the 10th to 14th centuries, and has been partially rebuilt after archaeological excavations.

This complex is situated in the centre of the new town of Kunya Urgench, within a Muslim cemetery. The Najm ad Din al Kubra Mausoleum was erected in the first half of the 14th century, and derives its name from the philosopher, painter, physician, chess master and general Najm al Din Kubra, the founder of the Kubrawiya Sufi order. This is one of the structures which was rebuilt during the Khorezm era of prosperity, and also after the Mongol invasion. The Mausoleum of Sultan Ali, who ruled in the 16th century, is located across. It is a hexagonal monument, with a dome measuring 9.5 meters in diameter. The Mausoleum of Piryar Vali, a contemporary of Najm al Din al Kubra, is located to the west of the latter's mausoleum, and was built in the 13th and 14th centuries. It is 6.5 meters high and measures 7.5 meters in length.

Il Arslan is a magnificent piece of architecture, also known among the people as the Mausoleum of Kho Rezmshah II Arslan, who ruled from 1156 to 1172. The mausoleum, dating to the 12th century, is the oldest standing monument in Gurgench. The building has a cuboidal structure of baked brick similar to the earliest existing Islamic mausoleum in Central Asia, the early 10th century mausoleum of the Samanids in Bukhara, but instead of a hemispherical dome it has a faceted conical roof. The structure is decorated with a motif carved in relief into brick panels, a frieze containing an aphorism written in beautiful script, and with carved vegetal motifs displaying variations of an arabesque pattern. The decorative scheme of the dome presents a tiling technique executed in turquoise glazed brick tiles, forming a geometric pattern. According to some of the latest scientific discoveries, one of the structure's functions, at a certain point, was that of storing water.

This monument is dedicated to Ibn Khajib, one of Najm ad Din al Kubra's talented disciples. It is located in the western part of ancient Urgench and it consists of a complex of monuments, all constructed in different periods of time, from the 14th to the 19th centuries.

Ak Kala is a fortress located southwest of the ruins of medieval Urgench. Its walls, whose height ranges from 6 to 8 meters, and which measure approximately 2 meters at the top, stretch on more than a kilometre. They were built with sun dried mud bricks and their corners are decorated with semi circular towers, whilst the inner side of the fortress wall is sustained by buttresses.