Museum of the History of the Varakhsha Settlement

About

The museum opened in 1995 in the nineteenth-century Ibrahim Okhund madrasah and belongs to the Bukhara State Museum-Reserve. It is devoted entirely to Varakhsha, one of the principal archaeological sites of the Bukhara oasis.

Varakhsha lay forty kilometres north-west of Bukhara on the road to Khorezm across the Kyzylkum. The town flourished in the fourth to seventh centuries as the seat of the Bukhar-khudats, rulers of the oasis before the Arab conquest. Its plan followed the pattern of the age: a citadel holding the palace, a shahristan of noble houses, and a rabad where craftsmen lived.

The halls display excavation finds: fragments of the palace murals, including parts of the celebrated Red Hall, carved ganch details, pottery, tenth- and eleventh-century jewellery, weapons and household objects. The collection of Bukhara ceramics traces the artistic tradition of the oasis across the centuries.

One section is given to the Varakhsha palace itself, among the most important architectural complexes of the early medieval period. Built in the fifth century, its ceremonial halls carried scenes of royal audiences and hunts, and it remained standing until the early ninth century.

The museum suits anyone curious about what Bukhara grew out of and what the culture of the oasis looked like before Islam.