# Afrasiab Museum and ancient city, Samarkand > The Afrasiab Museum stands at the edge of the mound of ancient Samarkand and holds the 7th-century Sogdian Ambassadors’ Painting. Foreign visitors pay about 40,000–80,000 som (unofficial), it opens roughly 9:00–17:00 and most sources say it is closed on Sundays. Allow an hour for the museum and half an hour to walk the hills. Web page: https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/afrasiab-museum - City: [Samarkand](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand), Uzbekistan - YesGo score: 35/100 (Yes, if nearby) - Time on site: 1 h 15 min - With kids: Fine with kids - Ticket (foreign visitors): ≈ UZS 40,000–80,000 - Uzbek citizens and children: Much cheaper; there is a child ticket - Hours: Monday–Saturday ≈ 9:00–17:00 - Closed: Sunday, according to most sources - The hills: No separate ticket for a walk, unofficially — ask at the desk - Payment: Bring som in cash — the desk doesn’t always take foreign cards - Time needed: 1–1.5 hours for the museum and the hills - Address: 7 Islam Karimov Street, on the Tashkent road behind the Siab Bazaar - From the Registan: ≈ 2.2 km as the crow flies: ≈ 10 min by taxi, ≈ 40 min on foot - Coordinates: 39.66934, 66.99335 - Facts checked: 02.11.2026 ## Key facts - **648–651 AD** — the usual dating of the Ambassadors’ Painting, the museum’s star exhibit (source: English Wikipedia, “Afrasiab murals” and “Samarkand”; Orexca (7th century)) - **1965** — the murals were found by accident while a road was being cut through the mound (source: English Wikipedia; World Society for the Study of the Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan (WOSCU)) - **200+ ha** — the area of the mound — the ruins of ancient Samarkand (source: Russian Wikipedia; English Wikipedia (220 ha)) - **1220** — Genghis Khan’s Mongols sacked the city and the hill was abandoned for good (source: English and Russian Wikipedia, “Samarkand”; Sputnik8) - **329 BC** — Alexander the Great took the city the Greeks called Maracanda (source: English and Russian Wikipedia, “Samarkand”) - **1970** — the museum opened for Samarkand’s 2,500th anniversary (source: English and Russian Wikipedia; Visit Silk Road; Wikidata) - **Varkhuman** — the 7th-century king of Samarkand named in a Sogdian inscription on the murals (source: English Wikipedia; Russian Wikipedia, “Varkhuman”; Orexca) - **Azatyan and Arzumanyan** — Shmavon Azatyan and Bagdasar Arzumanyan designed the building (source: Russian Wikipedia; Advantour (Arzumanyan); Visit Silk Road (Azatyan)) - **8th–6th c. BC** — estimates for the founding of the city: Russian sources say the 8th century, English Wikipedia the 7th–6th (source: Russian Wikipedia; Orexca; English Wikipedia) - **Afrasiab** — the mound is named after the mythical king of Turan in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh — a 17th-century name (source: English Wikipedia; Russian Wikipedia (17th century)) - **Goguryeo** — envoys from this Korean kingdom appear among the ambassadors (source: English Wikipedia; Russian Wikipedia, “Varkhuman”) ## Afrasiab Museum tickets and opening hours Entry is paid. The museum-reserve’s official price page wouldn’t load when we checked, so the fare is **unofficial**: foreign visitors pay about **UZS 40,000–80,000** (Uzbek som), and older lists show 25,000. Uzbek citizens and children pay much less. Buy at the desk inside the entrance; there is no need to book. Most guides give **9:00–17:00, Monday to Saturday**, with **Sunday closed**. One guide lists 9:00–18:00 every day, so if Sunday is your only free slot, check with your hotel or guide first. Payment: bring som in cash. A small museum desk may not take foreign cards — withdraw som in the centre before you come. > **Likely closed on Sundays** Most sources list Sunday as the closing day. Come Monday to Saturday and arrive by 16:00 to see the murals without rushing. You can still see the hills on a Sunday, but the paintings are only inside the museum. ## Is the Afrasiab Museum worth visiting? Yes, if you are curious about Samarkand before Timur. The Ambassadors’ Painting is the finest Sogdian mural cycle you can see in the city, and it shows a Silk Road court in colour more than 750 years before the Registan was built. Plan on 30–40 minutes for the mural hall alone. Be realistic about the rest. It is a small museum, labels are brief and not always in English, and the hills outside are mostly grassy loess with ditches rather than standing walls. On a one-day visit, put the [Registan](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/registan), [Shah-i-Zinda](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/shah-i-zinda) and [Gur-e-Amir](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/gur-e-amir) first. On a second day, Afrasiab is an easy, rewarding hour. ## The Afrasiab murals: what the Ambassadors’ Painting shows The murals date from the middle of the 7th century, most often to **648–651 AD**. They were found in **1965**, when a road was being cut across the mound, and covered all four walls of one room, now called the Hall of the Ambassadors. The upper part of the paintings is lost. On the west wall, envoys bring gifts to the ruler: Chinese officials with silk, men from the Korean kingdom of Goguryeo and from neighbouring Sogdian states, escorted by Turkic guards with long braids. A Sogdian inscription on one envoy’s robe names **King Varkhuman** of Samarkand and introduces the speaker as the chancellor of Chaganian. The south wall shows a grand procession with a figure on a white elephant, women on horseback and men on camels — read either as a wedding or as a procession honouring the ancestors. The north wall has Chinese scenes: a hunt and an empress in a boat. The east wall is mostly gone. A few fragments are kept in Tashkent. ## What to see inside - The **Ambassadors’ Painting** in its reconstructed hall — take time over the faces, fabrics and braids. - The Sogdian inscription naming **King Varkhuman**, on an envoy’s robe. - Ossuaries — clay chests for bones, used in pre-Islamic Sogdiana, where most people were Zoroastrians. - Sword and knife fragments and arrowheads from the excavations. - Coins, glass and painted pottery from the early city to the Timurid period. - Carved terracotta from 11th–12th-century Karakhanid buildings. ## Ancient Afrasiyab: Samarkand before the Mongols Afrasiyab is the site of **old Samarkand** — more than 200 hectares of loess hills on the city’s northern edge. People lived here for over two thousand years. Alexander the Great took the city, which the Greeks called **Maracanda**, in 329 BC; later it was the seat of Sogdian kings, then of the Samanids and Karakhanids. In **1220** Genghis Khan’s army sacked the city. Samarkand was rebuilt further south and the hill was never lived on again. The name Afrasiab came only in the 17th century, after the mythical king of Turan in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. Archaeologists have dug here since the 1870s: paved streets, quarters, thick defensive walls around a citadel, workshops and painted houses. The museum opened in **1970** for the city’s 2,500th anniversary, in a Soviet-modernist building by Shmavon Azatyan and Bagdasar Arzumanyan. ## How to get to the Afrasiab Museum 1. From the Registan it is ≈ 2.2 km as the crow flies. Easiest: a Yandex Go taxi, about 10 minutes, with the fare shown in the app before you ride. Paying the driver in cash som always works. 2. On foot it takes about 40 minutes: walk the pedestrian Tashkent Street past [Bibi-Khanym Mosque](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/bibi-khanym-mosque) to the [Siab Bazaar](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/siab-bazaar). 3. From the bazaar, head north along Islam Karimov Street (the Tashkent road), past [Hazrat Khizr Mosque](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/hazrat-khizr-mosque) on its hill and the entrance to Shah-i-Zinda. 4. Keep going for about 15 minutes alongside the mounds. The museum is a two-storey building with reliefs on the façade and a wide staircase. 5. City buses and marshrutka minibuses also run north along this road — check the number in Yandex Go or ask the driver. 6. Afterwards, walk about 8 minutes to the [Tomb of Saint Daniel](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/tomb-of-saint-daniel) by the river, on the northern edge of the same mound. ## Before you go: checklist - [ ] It isn’t Sunday — or I’ve checked the museum is open - [ ] I’ll arrive by 16:00 - [ ] Som in cash for the ticket - [ ] Closed shoes for the uneven hills - [ ] Water and a hat in summer - [ ] Allowed 1–1.5 hours ## Afrasiab, Shah-i-Zinda or the Ulugh Beg Observatory? | | Afrasiab | Shah-i-Zinda | Ulugh Beg Observatory | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | What it is | Ruins of the ancient city and a museum with 7th-century murals | A lane of 11th–19th-century mausoleums | Remains of a 15th-century observatory and a small museum | | Era | Before the Mongols, up to 1220 | Karakhanid to Timurid and later | Timurid, Ulugh Beg | | Time needed | 1–1.5 h | 1–1.5 h | 45 min – 1 hour | | What to wear | Anything, plus sturdy shoes | Covered — a working shrine | Anything | | From Afrasiab | — | ≈ 15 min on foot | ≈ 20 min on foot | With one day in Samarkand, Shah-i-Zinda matters more. On day two, Afrasiab, the observatory and Daniel’s tomb make one short walk around the north of the city, each 5–20 minutes from the next. ## Samarkand’s historic sights compared Every historic sight in Samarkand rated by YesGo. - [Gur-e-Amir](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/gur-e-amir) — YesGo score 59/100 (Yes, go) · 45 min · ≈ UZS 75,000, unofficial - [Registan](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/registan) — YesGo score 57/100 (Yes, go) · 1 h 30 min · 100,000 UZS for foreign visitors - [Bibi-Khanym Mosque](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/bibi-khanym-mosque) — YesGo score 49/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 40 min · ≈ UZS 75,000, unofficial - [Shah-i-Zinda](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/shah-i-zinda) — YesGo score 46/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 1 h 15 min · ≈ 50,000 som for foreigners - [Amir Timur Monument](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/samarkand-amir-timur-monument) — YesGo score 44/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 15 min · Free - [Tomb of Saint Daniel](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/tomb-of-saint-daniel) — YesGo score 41/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 40 min · ≈ UZS 30,000–40,000, unofficial - [Ulugh Beg Observatory](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/ulugh-beg-observatory) — YesGo score 40/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 45 min · UZS 40,000–75,000 (unofficial) - [Hazrat Khizr Mosque](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/hazrat-khizr-mosque) — YesGo score 38/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 30 min · Free, donations welcome - [Afrasiab Museum](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/afrasiab-museum) — YesGo score 35/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 1 h 15 min · ≈ UZS 40,000–80,000 (unofficial) ## Northern Samarkand in half a day The avenue of mausoleums, the ancient city and its murals, Daniel’s tomb by the river and the observatory on its hill — one line, 10–20 minutes between stops. YesGo sets the timings and transfers. 1. [Shah-i-Zinda](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/shah-i-zinda) — YesGo score 46/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 1 h 15 min · ≈ 50,000 som for foreigners 2. [Afrasiab Museum](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/afrasiab-museum) — YesGo score 35/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 1 h 15 min · ≈ UZS 40,000–80,000 (unofficial) 3. [Tomb of Saint Daniel](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/tomb-of-saint-daniel) — YesGo score 41/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 40 min · ≈ UZS 30,000–40,000, unofficial 4. [Ulugh Beg Observatory](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/ulugh-beg-observatory) — YesGo score 40/100 (Yes, if nearby) · 45 min · UZS 40,000–75,000 (unofficial) > **Murals first, hills second** See the museum before you walk the mound — after the Hall of the Ambassadors the bare hills make sense. The mural hall is dimly lit: give your eyes a minute and look closely at the braids of the Turkic guards and the patterns on the envoys’ robes. ## Good to know The Afrosiyob high-speed train from Tashkent is named after the site but arrives at the railway station on the other side of town. Afrasiab the king is a figure of Persian legend, not a ruler of Samarkand. Spellings vary: Afrasiab, Afrasiyab, Afrosiyob and Afrosiab all mean the same place. ## Tips - Pair it with Shah-i-Zinda: the walk from the necropolis to the museum takes about 15 minutes along the mounds. - Hot day? Don’t spend more than half an hour on the hills — the nearest rises by the museum give you the view. - The labels are short, so a guide or tour pays off if you want the murals explained scene by scene. - Go on to the Tomb of Saint Daniel and the [Ulugh Beg Observatory](https://yesgo.io/uzbekistan/samarkand/ulugh-beg-observatory) for a half-day in the north. - Come in the morning: the loess hills heat up by midday and there is no shade. ## Questions ### How much is the Afrasiab Museum entrance fee? Unofficially, about UZS 40,000–80,000 for foreign visitors; Uzbek citizens and children pay less. Pay in som cash at the desk. ### What are the Afrasiab Museum opening hours? Most sources give 9:00–17:00, Monday to Saturday. The official timetable wasn’t available when we checked, and one guide lists 9:00–18:00 daily. ### Is the Afrasiab Museum open on Sunday? Probably not — most sources list Sunday as the closing day. If Sunday is your only option, check with your hotel or guide before you go. ### What are the Afrasiab murals? Sogdian wall paintings from about 648–651 AD, found in 1965. They show envoys from China, Korea and Central Asia before King Varkhuman of Samarkand, a procession with a white elephant, and Chinese hunting and boat scenes. ### Is the Afrasiab Museum worth it? Yes, for the murals and for anyone curious about Samarkand before Timur. The rest of the museum is modest; on a one-day trip, see the Registan, Shah-i-Zinda and Gur-e-Amir first. ### How do I get to Afrasiab from the Registan? A Yandex Go taxi takes about 10 minutes. Walking takes about 40 minutes via Tashkent Street, the Siab Bazaar and the Tashkent road past Shah-i-Zinda. ### How long do you need at Afrasiab? About an hour for the museum and half an hour for the hills. If you only want the murals, 30–40 minutes is enough. ### What was Afrasiyab? The original city of Samarkand, known to the Greeks as Maracanda. It covered more than 200 hectares and was abandoned after the Mongols sacked it in 1220. ### Can you walk around the Afrasiab ruins? Yes. Paths lead over the mounds from near the museum; unofficially no extra ticket is needed. Wear closed shoes — the ground is uneven, with ditches and drops. ## How we checked The Samarkand museum-reserve website returned a server error on 02.11.2026, so the fare and hours are unofficial and marked as checking. Fares disagree: UZS 25,000 in a 2021–2024 list, 40,000 in Travel Cost Calculator’s 2026 estimate, 80,000 in 2025 traveller reports; Afisha.uz gives “from 10,000” without separating foreign and local visitors. We show 40,000–80,000. Hours: Afisha.uz and Advantour give 9:00–17:00 with Sundays closed, Sputnik8 9:00–18:00 daily; we show the first. Sources disagree on the number of exhibits (over 2,000 vs over 20,000), so we leave it out. They also disagree on the upper register of the murals — English Wikipedia says bulldozers destroyed it in 1965, WOSCU says it was lost in the 10th–11th centuries — so we only say it is lost. The founding date differs too, and we show both estimates. Distances are our own calculation from Wikidata coordinates; walking times are an estimate (road ≈ 1.3 × straight line, 4.5 km/h). ## Sources - English Wikipedia: “Afrasiab Museum of Samarkand”, “Afrasiab murals”, “Afrasiyab (Samarkand)”, “Samarkand” - Russian Wikipedia: “Afrasiab (museum)”, “Afrasiab (settlement)”, “Samarkand”, “Varkhuman”; Wikidata Q4306302 and Q2167520 - World Society for the Study of the Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan (WOSCU, society.uz): “Wall paintings found on Afrasiab hill”, 2023 - Visit Silk Road; Advantour; Orexca — museum history, architects, collection, hours - Afisha.uz: “Museums of Samarkand”, May 2025 — address, hours, collection - UzDaily, February 2024 — renovation of the museum halls - Sputnik8; Travel Cost Calculator (2026); Mind of a Hitchhiker (2024) — unofficial fares and hours --- This is the Markdown version of a YesGo page for AI assistants. Quote the web page link above, not this file.