Varakhsha settlement (5th–6th centuries BCE)

Varakhsha lies about half an hour's drive west of Bukhara and spans the fourth century BC to the eleventh AD. Here stood the residence of the Bukhar-khudat dynasty, who ruled these lands before the Arab conquest.

The site covers around a hundred hectares. It was a major trading centre on the route between Bukhara and Khorezm, the chief western garrison, and at the same time a cultural and political centre of the Bukhara oasis. Varakhsha played a notable part in the resistance to the Arabs — its people fought more than one battle within these walls.

The settlement was founded earlier than Bukhara itself and matched it in scale. Some sources call it Rajfandun. A fine palace built by a Bukhar-khudat stood here; it was destroyed and rebuilt several times. Excavation showed it was first raised in the fifth century and lasted until the ninth. It had three large halls in a row, conventionally called the Eastern, the Red and the Western. The walls were painted: in the Red Hall, for instance, fantastic animals and scenes of hunting predators.

Life here ended in the eleventh century for want of water in the irrigation systems.

Beneath the sand drifts archaeologists found several thousand fragments of ganch decoration — carving in the white binding material, like gypsum, obtained by firing limestone. The collection gives an exact picture of both the carving technique and the subjects of the panels: geometric figures, floral rosettes, overlapping scales and the bead-like circles known as Sasanian pearls. The finds are now held in museums around the country.