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Merv
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How it came to be
Towns stood in the Merv oasis from the Bronze Age, around 2500 BC. The first city was founded in the 6th century BC as the Achaemenid Empire expanded, and Darius I's Behistun inscription lists it as Margu. The Seleucid king Antiochus I renamed it Antiochia Margiana and rebuilt it at Gyaur Kala.
After centuries of Sasanian rule, Arab forces arrived in the 7th century, and in 748 Abu Muslim proclaimed the Abbasid cause here. Caliph al-Ma'mun lived at Merv from 813 to 818. From 1118 to 1153 it was capital of the whole Seljuk empire, and the mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar stands in Sultan Kala, the city walled in the 11th century.
In 1221 Tolui, son of Genghis Khan, took the city, and most of its people are said to have been killed. UNESCO calls Merv the oldest and best-preserved of the Silk Road oasis cities in Central Asia. It became the State Historical and Cultural Park Ancient Merv in 1987 and was inscribed in 1999.
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