Dayakhatyn: the most important monument on the Great Silk Road
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Twelve centuries ago, when the Amu Darya (or Jeyhun, as the great Central Asian river was then called) was much more full-flowing, a monumental building appeared on one of its high banks. It can be seen today, if you overcome a distance of 170 kilometers, moving along the left bank to the north of the modern city of Turkmenabat.
This building, standing lonely on the edge of the desert where the sands of the sultry Karakum almost closely resemble the river, was built in the center of the square fortress in 821-822, when the governor of the Arab Caliphate in Khorasan was Tahir ibn Hussein - a prominent figure in the early history of Islam. The construction of this fort, called Tahiriya, is also attributed to him.
In those days, the Muslim power entrusted the protection of its borders, especially in remote areas of Central Asia, to brave warriors who longed for excellence in matters of struggle for faith - they were called "ghazis." The fighting spirit of these people was forged in the walls of such fortresses, called the Arabic word "ribat" (in Central Asia it was changed to "rabat"). There they lived, studying the Koran, military training and prayers.
Rabat, which was built on the Amu Darya by the one-eyed Tahir ibn Hussein, who founded the Tahirid dynasty, whose capital was located in Merv, has largely survived to this day. True, already in the Seljuk era, it changed its function, turning into a caravanserai of Dayakhatyn. To do this, at the turn of the XI-XII centuries, as they would say now, the central building of the former discount was modernized: it was dressed in a new lining that met the tastes and style of that time.
On the territory of Turkmenistan, among the surviving inns there is no match for its artistic excellence. Even in neighboring countries, only two such monuments of the time can be put on a par with Dayakhatyn: this is Rabat-i Malik - the Karakhanid steppe residence on the main highway between Samarkand and Bukhara, as well as Rabat-i Sharaf in the mountains between Serakhs and Nishapur, built by order of Governor of Merv.
All three buildings could be called elite, fashionable hotels of the Middle Ages. They are very different from the huge variety of caravanserais that were set up in cities and deserts on the numerous routes of the Great Silk Road for resting and protecting caravans every 25-35 kilometers. That was the distance of the daytime passage of caravans on the ancient highway, connecting the mysterious and mystical East with rational and pragmatic Europe.
Most of them have long disappeared, turned into ruins, covered with sand, or by swaths of their own walls, and only the most monumental still rise above the horizon. Dayakhatyn is the only one whose safety is such that it makes it easy to present its holistic image and gives modern restorers the opportunity to restore almost all the lost parts of the building and decor elements without any speculation, on a strictly scientific basis, relying on the existing original.
Towards the end of the 11th century, the most characteristic type of inn was formed for Khorasan. The planning scheme of these rectangular or square, but always symmetrical structures includes a courtyard circled around the perimeter for rooms for visitors, warehouses, canopies for pack animals and forage.
If the city buildings of the caravanserais didn’t need defense and were placed next to the bazaars - at the nodal points of the cities, then those built far away in the steppe were necessarily protected by blank walls with powerful gate towers. Sometimes old, abandoned ribats were adapted for them, as was the case with Tahiriya.
In terms of Dayakhatyn, it is a square with sides of 53 meters. It was built of adobe bricks, but the wall cladding, masonry of arches, vaults and domes are made of high-quality burnt bricks, and in some places decorative stucco molding of plaster is used. Just look at the surviving panels, symmetrically located to the left and right of the entrance, to accurately determine the style of this monument.
Only in the pre-Nogol era, local architects so masterfully used simple bricks to decorate the walls. All kinds of curly and relief masonry using carved brick inserts filling the gaps between bricks laid in pairs made it possible to obtain a plastically expressive, if not to say, sophisticated ornamentation surface.
The masters of the 11th-12th centuries were also able to make skillful epigraphic panels with such techniques. On both sides of the entrance to Dayakhatyn, slanting Arabic letters are drawn in brickwork in Kufi script. Of these diagonal lines, which may seem like only patterns, the words “Allah”, “Muhammad”, and also the names of the first successors of the prophet: “Ali”, “Omar”, “Osman” and “Abu Bekr” are composed in six rectangular frames”.
The very fact of mentioning the four righteous caliphs, or the Charyyars, as the Turkmens have long called them, also indicates that Dayakhatyn was not a simple merchant hotel, but a state caravanserai intended for the rest of crowned persons and their courtiers during long trips around their expanses powers.
The rooms that served as their chambers stand out noticeably among other rooms with an unusual layout and an extremely inventive design. There was a mosque in Dayakhatyn. This is an oblong hall to the right of the lobby, divided by two transverse arches into three parts. In the middle of each of them there are mihrab niches; they are precisely oriented to the Kaaba.
Unfortunately, no inscriptions telling about those who adorned this building during the Great Seljuks were not preserved on the building, and its old name was forgotten.
The name “Dayakhatyn” first appears in Khiva chronicles of the early 19th century, where these places are described. Speaking of the caravanserai, the Khivans used it along with the similar Khatyn-rabat, but both mean the same thing: a stone building with a courtyard.
However, local Turkmens, in tune, long ago changed its mind and still say Baykhatyn, linking the monument to a certain virtuous woman, the wife of a rich man (bai), passing from mouth to mouth, from generation to generation, a once-born legend.
In the history of Dayakhatyn there was another reconstruction - in the 15th or 16th centuries, when the main entrance to it acquired its current form. The high arched portal made then differs sharply from the filigree Seljuk masonry: it is devoid of any decorations, and it is made of larger bricks and not so carefully.
Very soon, the caravanserai lost its significance, because caravans stopped walking along the Great Silk Road. Since then, the building was abandoned and it began to slowly collapse, only military units sometimes stopped there for the night and rare wanderers hid from the sun.
In the 1920s, Dayakhatyn was first examined by a professional archaeologist - it was Alexander Aleksandrovich Marushchenko, who laid the foundations for the archeology of Turkmenistan, and in 1950, architecture historian from Moscow Anna Maksimovna Pribytkova carried out the first detailed study of the caravanserai. She wrote:
"In this one building, you can trace the huge variety of masonry techniques for arches, domes, dome structures, arches, light holes in the ceilings, the optimal spans of various structures and more."
Then her colleague, academician Galina Anatolyevna Pugachenkova, came here, together with a detachment of the South Turkmenistan Archaeological Complex Expedition (UTAKE). She wrote the most fundamental work on the history of architecture of Turkmenistan, in which many pages are devoted to the Amu Darya fort, as well as a capacious and accurate explanation of the exceptional value of this monument is formulated:
"The architecture of the caravanserai Dayayatyn is a model of a mature style in which the requirements of functional soundness, constructive expediency and artistic perfection appear in indissoluble unity."
Despite the remoteness from modern settlements and traffic flows, Dayakhatyn has long become a popular object of international tourism. The administration of the Kerkin State Historical and Cultural Reserve, which is in charge of this monument, has repeatedly made attempts on its own to eliminate the threats of the collapse of the most dangerous sections of the building and strengthen structurally important nodes.
The problem is that over many centuries, due to atmospheric precipitation and winds, the brickwork of many sections of the building, especially vaulted and domed ceilings, has greatly weakened, creating a threat of falling bricks and collapsing pieces of walls.
To prevent further deterioration of the monument, in 2013-2019, the National Department for the Protection, Study and Restoration of Historical and Cultural Monuments under the Ministry of Culture of Turkmenistan carried out the first two stages of the restoration of the caravanserai, supported by the US Ambassador Fund for the Preservation of Cultural heritage.
As a result, conservation of the most emergency sections of walls, floors and cladding of the main facade was carried out, as well as a partial restoration of the courtyard facade and gallery to the left and right of the entrance to the caravanserai. The lost upper part of the entrance portal from the outside and inside was restored. In addition, a virtual reconstruction of the general appearance of the monument in 3D format was created.
Restorers led by architects Derkar Dovletov and Maksatmurad Amanov recreated the lost and amenable to scientifically sound reconstruction sections of the construction site. First, full-scale studies of the monument were carried out, archival materials were studied, an act of technical condition of the caravanserai was compiled, then working drawings of this stage of its restoration were developed. On their basis, the entire practical part of the project is implemented.
During the restoration work, a middle-age brick suitable for secondary use was used from this monument, and the necessary number of new bricks was made according to the formats and quality of the original samples. The tasks of the next stages of the Dayakhatyn restoration are determined, which must be carried out in the near future.
Among the most significant sites of the Great Silk Road, this monument is recommended for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
This building, standing lonely on the edge of the desert where the sands of the sultry Karakum almost closely resemble the river, was built in the center of the square fortress in 821-822, when the governor of the Arab Caliphate in Khorasan was Tahir ibn Hussein - a prominent figure in the early history of Islam. The construction of this fort, called Tahiriya, is also attributed to him.
In those days, the Muslim power entrusted the protection of its borders, especially in remote areas of Central Asia, to brave warriors who longed for excellence in matters of struggle for faith - they were called "ghazis." The fighting spirit of these people was forged in the walls of such fortresses, called the Arabic word "ribat" (in Central Asia it was changed to "rabat"). There they lived, studying the Koran, military training and prayers.
Rabat, which was built on the Amu Darya by the one-eyed Tahir ibn Hussein, who founded the Tahirid dynasty, whose capital was located in Merv, has largely survived to this day. True, already in the Seljuk era, it changed its function, turning into a caravanserai of Dayakhatyn. To do this, at the turn of the XI-XII centuries, as they would say now, the central building of the former discount was modernized: it was dressed in a new lining that met the tastes and style of that time.
On the territory of Turkmenistan, among the surviving inns there is no match for its artistic excellence. Even in neighboring countries, only two such monuments of the time can be put on a par with Dayakhatyn: this is Rabat-i Malik - the Karakhanid steppe residence on the main highway between Samarkand and Bukhara, as well as Rabat-i Sharaf in the mountains between Serakhs and Nishapur, built by order of Governor of Merv.
All three buildings could be called elite, fashionable hotels of the Middle Ages. They are very different from the huge variety of caravanserais that were set up in cities and deserts on the numerous routes of the Great Silk Road for resting and protecting caravans every 25-35 kilometers. That was the distance of the daytime passage of caravans on the ancient highway, connecting the mysterious and mystical East with rational and pragmatic Europe.
Most of them have long disappeared, turned into ruins, covered with sand, or by swaths of their own walls, and only the most monumental still rise above the horizon. Dayakhatyn is the only one whose safety is such that it makes it easy to present its holistic image and gives modern restorers the opportunity to restore almost all the lost parts of the building and decor elements without any speculation, on a strictly scientific basis, relying on the existing original.
Towards the end of the 11th century, the most characteristic type of inn was formed for Khorasan. The planning scheme of these rectangular or square, but always symmetrical structures includes a courtyard circled around the perimeter for rooms for visitors, warehouses, canopies for pack animals and forage.
If the city buildings of the caravanserais didn’t need defense and were placed next to the bazaars - at the nodal points of the cities, then those built far away in the steppe were necessarily protected by blank walls with powerful gate towers. Sometimes old, abandoned ribats were adapted for them, as was the case with Tahiriya.
In terms of Dayakhatyn, it is a square with sides of 53 meters. It was built of adobe bricks, but the wall cladding, masonry of arches, vaults and domes are made of high-quality burnt bricks, and in some places decorative stucco molding of plaster is used. Just look at the surviving panels, symmetrically located to the left and right of the entrance, to accurately determine the style of this monument.
Only in the pre-Nogol era, local architects so masterfully used simple bricks to decorate the walls. All kinds of curly and relief masonry using carved brick inserts filling the gaps between bricks laid in pairs made it possible to obtain a plastically expressive, if not to say, sophisticated ornamentation surface.
The masters of the 11th-12th centuries were also able to make skillful epigraphic panels with such techniques. On both sides of the entrance to Dayakhatyn, slanting Arabic letters are drawn in brickwork in Kufi script. Of these diagonal lines, which may seem like only patterns, the words “Allah”, “Muhammad”, and also the names of the first successors of the prophet: “Ali”, “Omar”, “Osman” and “Abu Bekr” are composed in six rectangular frames”.
The very fact of mentioning the four righteous caliphs, or the Charyyars, as the Turkmens have long called them, also indicates that Dayakhatyn was not a simple merchant hotel, but a state caravanserai intended for the rest of crowned persons and their courtiers during long trips around their expanses powers.
The rooms that served as their chambers stand out noticeably among other rooms with an unusual layout and an extremely inventive design. There was a mosque in Dayakhatyn. This is an oblong hall to the right of the lobby, divided by two transverse arches into three parts. In the middle of each of them there are mihrab niches; they are precisely oriented to the Kaaba.
Unfortunately, no inscriptions telling about those who adorned this building during the Great Seljuks were not preserved on the building, and its old name was forgotten.
The name “Dayakhatyn” first appears in Khiva chronicles of the early 19th century, where these places are described. Speaking of the caravanserai, the Khivans used it along with the similar Khatyn-rabat, but both mean the same thing: a stone building with a courtyard.
However, local Turkmens, in tune, long ago changed its mind and still say Baykhatyn, linking the monument to a certain virtuous woman, the wife of a rich man (bai), passing from mouth to mouth, from generation to generation, a once-born legend.
In the history of Dayakhatyn there was another reconstruction - in the 15th or 16th centuries, when the main entrance to it acquired its current form. The high arched portal made then differs sharply from the filigree Seljuk masonry: it is devoid of any decorations, and it is made of larger bricks and not so carefully.
Very soon, the caravanserai lost its significance, because caravans stopped walking along the Great Silk Road. Since then, the building was abandoned and it began to slowly collapse, only military units sometimes stopped there for the night and rare wanderers hid from the sun.
In the 1920s, Dayakhatyn was first examined by a professional archaeologist - it was Alexander Aleksandrovich Marushchenko, who laid the foundations for the archeology of Turkmenistan, and in 1950, architecture historian from Moscow Anna Maksimovna Pribytkova carried out the first detailed study of the caravanserai. She wrote:
"In this one building, you can trace the huge variety of masonry techniques for arches, domes, dome structures, arches, light holes in the ceilings, the optimal spans of various structures and more."
Then her colleague, academician Galina Anatolyevna Pugachenkova, came here, together with a detachment of the South Turkmenistan Archaeological Complex Expedition (UTAKE). She wrote the most fundamental work on the history of architecture of Turkmenistan, in which many pages are devoted to the Amu Darya fort, as well as a capacious and accurate explanation of the exceptional value of this monument is formulated:
"The architecture of the caravanserai Dayayatyn is a model of a mature style in which the requirements of functional soundness, constructive expediency and artistic perfection appear in indissoluble unity."
Despite the remoteness from modern settlements and traffic flows, Dayakhatyn has long become a popular object of international tourism. The administration of the Kerkin State Historical and Cultural Reserve, which is in charge of this monument, has repeatedly made attempts on its own to eliminate the threats of the collapse of the most dangerous sections of the building and strengthen structurally important nodes.
The problem is that over many centuries, due to atmospheric precipitation and winds, the brickwork of many sections of the building, especially vaulted and domed ceilings, has greatly weakened, creating a threat of falling bricks and collapsing pieces of walls.
To prevent further deterioration of the monument, in 2013-2019, the National Department for the Protection, Study and Restoration of Historical and Cultural Monuments under the Ministry of Culture of Turkmenistan carried out the first two stages of the restoration of the caravanserai, supported by the US Ambassador Fund for the Preservation of Cultural heritage.
As a result, conservation of the most emergency sections of walls, floors and cladding of the main facade was carried out, as well as a partial restoration of the courtyard facade and gallery to the left and right of the entrance to the caravanserai. The lost upper part of the entrance portal from the outside and inside was restored. In addition, a virtual reconstruction of the general appearance of the monument in 3D format was created.
Restorers led by architects Derkar Dovletov and Maksatmurad Amanov recreated the lost and amenable to scientifically sound reconstruction sections of the construction site. First, full-scale studies of the monument were carried out, archival materials were studied, an act of technical condition of the caravanserai was compiled, then working drawings of this stage of its restoration were developed. On their basis, the entire practical part of the project is implemented.
During the restoration work, a middle-age brick suitable for secondary use was used from this monument, and the necessary number of new bricks was made according to the formats and quality of the original samples. The tasks of the next stages of the Dayakhatyn restoration are determined, which must be carried out in the near future.
Among the most significant sites of the Great Silk Road, this monument is recommended for inclusion in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
