Ancient Merv: Exploring Turkmenistan's UNESCO Heritage Site from Mary

Mary, the modern Turkmen city that serves as the gateway to Ancient Merv, bears little resemblance to its illustrious predecessor. My journey began here, in a modest hotel where the proprietor's eyes lit up when I mentioned my pilgrimage to the ancient city. 'You will feel the souls of many worlds there,' he told me in carefully measured English.

He wasn't wrong. Standing amid the sprawling complex the following morning, I was immediately struck by the spiritual pluralism that once defined this crossroads of civilizations. The ruins of Buddhist stupas neighbor remnants of Nestorian Christian churches, while traces of Zoroastrian fire temples and grand Islamic structures tell the story of faith's evolution across centuries.

The Greater Kyz Kala fortress, with its corrugated walls rising dramatically against the desert sky, became my first meditation spot. I sat in its shadow, my travel meditation cushion providing comfort against the hard-packed earth, and contemplated how these walls once protected scholars who preserved knowledge during Europe's Dark Ages.

Ancient Merv is not a single site but a collection of adjacent urban centers that shifted over centuries. My second day began with Sultan Sanjar Mausoleum, its restored dome gleaming against the cloudless sky. The cool interior offered respite from the spring heat, which, even in April, climbed steadily throughout the morning.

I traced the evolution of the city through its five distinct sections, from Erk Kala (the oldest settlement dating to the 7th century BCE) to the Islamic-era Sultan Kala. Each step traversed not just distance but time itself. My archaeological guidebook proved invaluable, providing context that the sparse information placards couldn't offer.

'In Ireland, we consider a building from the 12th century to be ancient,' I remarked to my guide, Maksat. 'Here, that would be practically modern.' He laughed, pointing to a crumbling caravanserai where Silk Road traders once haggled over goods from China and India. 'My ancestors might have traded spices from your mother's homeland right here,' he said, a connection across time that left me momentarily speechless.

As the day's heat began to subside, I made my way back to the Lesser and Greater Kyz Kala fortresses. These mysterious structures, with their distinctive corrugated walls, are among Merv's most enigmatic features. Historians still debate their original purpose – were they elite residences, defensive structures, or something else entirely?

I climbed a nearby dune with my lightweight camping chair to watch the sunset transform the mud-brick monuments. As twilight settled over the landscape, the fortresses took on an otherworldly glow, their corrugated walls catching the last rays of sun like the pleats of a monk's robe.

In this moment of desert solitude, I was struck by how Merv embodies the impermanence that both Buddhist and Christian traditions contemplate. The city that once rivaled Baghdad and Constantinople now returns slowly to the earth from which it rose. Yet something essential remains – a testament to human creativity and spiritual seeking that transcends the physical structures themselves.

'The wind that shaped these walls carries the prayers of countless pilgrims,' I wrote in my journal as darkness fell, the temperature dropping rapidly as it only does in desert environments.

While Ancient Merv captivated my soul, the modern city of Mary offered its own cultural treasures. After days exploring ruins, I found myself drawn to the Mary Regional Museum, where artifacts from excavations bring context to the crumbling structures I'd been exploring.

The museum's collection of Parthian rhytons (ceremonial drinking vessels often shaped like animals) particularly fascinated me. I spent an hour sketching their intricate designs in my travel watercolor set, attracting curious glances from local visitors unaccustomed to seeing foreign tourists so engaged with their heritage.

In the evenings, I sought out local cuisine at small family-run establishments away from my hotel. At one such place, an elderly woman served me plov (rice pilaf with lamb) from a massive kazan (cooking pot) that could have fed a small caravan. When I mentioned my visit to Merv in my limited Russian, she nodded knowingly. 'My grandfather worked with the first archaeologists there,' she told me through a younger relative who translated. 'He always said the city was not dead, just sleeping.'

This sentiment – that ancient sites remain spiritually alive – resonated deeply with my own experiences at sacred places across traditions. In Merv, as in the stone circles of Ireland or the temples of Kerala, the connection between past and present is not severed but transformed.

On my final night, I arranged through my hotel for a special desert excursion with a local astronomer who occasionally guides visitors. We drove 30 minutes beyond the archaeological site, deep into the Karakum Desert where light pollution fades to nothing.

As darkness enveloped us completely, the stars emerged with an intensity I've rarely witnessed outside the Arctic regions of Scandinavia. My guide set up a modest portable telescope and oriented me to the night sky as seen from this part of Central Asia.

'The ancient scholars of Merv were renowned astronomers,' he explained, pointing out constellations. 'They mapped these same stars and planets, contributing significantly to medieval understanding of the cosmos.'

We sat in contemplative silence on desert camping mats, sipping sweet tea from a thermos as shooting stars occasionally streaked across the vault of heaven. In that moment, the artificial boundaries between faith traditions seemed as insubstantial as the thin desert air. The scholars of ancient Merv – Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Christian, and Muslim alike – had all looked to these same stars for orientation, just as spiritual seekers across traditions still do.

'In the desert,' I reflected aloud, 'we're reminded of our true scale in the universe.' My guide nodded, adding, 'And yet the desert also teaches us that even the smallest things – a seed, a drop of water – contain tremendous significance.'