Köne-Urgench (former names: Kunya-Urgench, Urgench, Gurganj) (Turkmen: Köneürgenç) is a city, the administrative center of the Köne-Urgench etrap of the Dashoguz velayat of Turkmenistan. It is one of the oldest cities in Turkmenistan and all of Central Asia. Translated from the Turkmen language, the name of the city means “Old Urgench”. Köne-Urgench is located 480 km north of the capital of Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, on the territory of the ancient Sarykamysh delta of the Amu Darya. Köne-Urgench (Old Urgench) was the capital of Khorezm, a region that was part of the Achaemenid Empire. The ancient city contains a number of monuments dating mainly from the 11th to 16th centuries, including a mosque, a caravanserai gate, fortresses, mausoleums and a minaret. They testify to the outstanding achievements in architecture and crafts, the influence of which was felt in Iran and Afghanistan, and later, in the 16th century, in the architecture of the Mughal Empire in India. From the 11th to the 13th centuries, Koneurgench was the capital of a large medieval empire, the Khorezmshah State, headed by the Oghuz-Turkmen Anushteginid dynasty, and the centre of Khorezm until the 16th century. Before the Mongol conquest of Khorezm in the 13th century, it was called Gurganj and was one of the largest and richest cities in the East. In the first half of the 14th century, it was the main centre of Muslim theology, in the second half of the 14th century. It was repeatedly attacked and partially destroyed by the troops of the Turkic-Mongol conqueror Tamerlane.
The first information about Koneurgench under the name Yue-gan is found in the Chinese chronicle of the 3rd-1st centuries BC “History of the Elder Han”. The next mention in Chinese sources appears only in the 7th century, where Yue-gan is considered a Turkic possession, where there are “oxen with carts”. During this same period, the Khorezm cities of the Sarykamysh delta of the Amu Darya Kunya-uaz, Zamakshar, Yarbekir, Shahsenem and others, located in northern Turkmenistan, flourished.
The date of the foundation of Koneurgench is unknown, but the remains of the oldest fortress of the city “Kyrk-molla” (Forty mullahs) date back to the ancient period (5th-2nd centuries BC). The city is mentioned in the Avesta under the name Urva (Urga).
In 305-995, Kone-Urgench (Gurgandzh) was part of the Khorezm state, headed by the Afrighid dynasty. In the middle of the 8th century, the city fell under the rule of the Arabs. After the Arab expansion, it received the name Gurgandzh.
Kone-Urgench in the Mamunid era
Kone-Urgench became the capital of the northern Khorezm state of the Urgench Emirate, and in the Samanid state it was second in size only to Bukhara. In 995, Emir Mamun ibn Muhammad defeated Southern Khorezm, killing the last Afrighid Abu-Abdallah Muhammad. Having united the entire region under his rule, he began to rule from the southern Khorezm capital, the city of Kyat. The Academy of Mamun was founded in Kune-Urgench, where the cream of science gathered, including such world-famous scholars as Ibn Sina and al-Biruni, who also headed it. The foundations of two works that made Ibn Sina famous, The Canon of Medicine (Al-Qanun fit-t-tibb) and The Book of Healing (Kitab ash-shifa), were laid in Kune-Urgench.
Kune-Urgench was located on one of the important medieval routes of the Great Silk Road. It is one of the largest archaeological sites in Turkmenistan, located in a vast protected area and containing a large number of well-preserved architectural monuments dating from the 11th to 16th centuries. They include mosques, caravanserai gates, fortresses, mausoleums and a minaret.
In 1017, Khorezm was conquered by Mahmud of Ghazni.
Capital of the State of Khorezmshahs
With the rise of the Oghuz-Turkmen dynasty of Anushteginids, Koneurgench regained its capital status in Khorezm and became the center of a huge empire in the territory of Central Asia and the Middle East. Soviet Turkologist E. Navshirvanov notes that “… the state of the Oghuz-Turkmen, i.e. the state of the Khorezmshahs, organized before the Mongol invasion of Khorezm, tried to gather the Oghuz-Turkmen tribes around itself and lead them.” The 12th century and the beginning of the 13th century were the heyday of Koneurgench, which became one of the largest cities in Central Asia.
Capture of the city by Genghis Khan
In 1221, Koneurgench, which was called the “heart of Islam”, was destroyed by the Mongols. At the beginning of 1221, a 50,000-strong army of Jochi, Chagatai and Ogedei approached the capital of Khorezm. After a seven-month siege, the Mongols took it, destroyed it, and took the inhabitants captive. The historian of the Hulaguid State Rashid ad-Din wrote about the cruelty of the Mongol conquerors towards the city’s inhabitants and the destruction of its quarters, as did the historian of the 13th century. In the 16th century, an unexpected change in the direction of the Amu Darya to the north forced most of its inhabitants to leave this place. In 1646, after the construction of the new city of Urgench (the territory of modern Uzbekistan), ancient Urgench began to be called Koneurgench (Old Urgench). From 1511 to 1920, it was part of the Khiva Khanate, and was its capital from 1511 to 1598.
In 1924, the entire territory of the Sarykamysh delta of the Amu Darya, including Koneurgench, became part of the Turkmen SSR, and in 1925 – part of the Tashauz region of the Turkmen SSR. In 1992, the village of Kunya-Urgench was renamed the village of Koneurgench and was part of the Koneurgench etrap (district) of the Dashkhovuz velayat of Turkmenistan.
List of famous fortresses in Kunya-Urgench:
- Mausoleum of Nadzhimetdin Kubra. He was a famous (Arabic: نجم الدين الكبرى; 1145, Khiva – 1221) Uzbek theologian, author of numerous philosophical and theological treatises, Sufi sheikh and poet, founder of the Kubrawiyya tariqa.
According to legend, despite Genghis Khan’s request to leave the city, Najm ad-din Kubra remained to defend Urgench with his students with weapons in hand.
His grave and mausoleum are located on the territory of the Kune-Urgench National Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve in Kune-Urgench, Turkmenistan.
- The Kutlug Timur Minaret (Turkmen: Gutlug Temiriň minarasy) is a minaret built in 1320–1330 by the governor of the Zolotoy Rodyn Khan, Kutlug Timur, from the Kungrat clan, and located on the territory of an ancient settlement that is part of the city of Kune-Urgench in the Dashoguz Velayat of Turkmenistan.
- The Tyurabek Khanym Mausoleum (also: Torebeg Khanym Mausoleum; Turkmen: Törebeg hanym kümmeti) is a medieval mausoleum located on the territory of the Kune-Urgench National Historical and Cultural Museum-Reserve in Kune-Urgench, Turkmenistan. The mausoleum was built in honor of Tyurabek Khanum, who was the daughter of the Golden Horde Khan Uzbek Khan and the wife of his Khorezm governor from the Kungrat clan Kutlug-Timur, and later became the burial place of the Sufi-Kungrat dynasty (1359-1388).
