Phoenix Cities of Central Asia The two great archaeological
sites of Samarkand are Ulugh Beg's astronomical observatory and
the site of Afrasiab, the original Maracanda, the city that was
permanently destroyed by Genghis Khan. Ulugh Beg's Observatory
Ulugh Beg, Timur's grandson and the ruler of Samarkand, was one
of the great medieval astronomers, although his work was not
known in the West for 200 years after his death. His
observatory, begun in 1428, was a circular building three
stories high. It contained the largest quadrant a device used
for making accurate astronomical observations that had ever been
built. As the best-equipped observatory anywhere in the world at
the time, it attracted leading Islamic scientists to Samarkand,
enriching the intellectual life of the city. Two hundred years
before Kepler, 150 before Tycho Brahe, Ulugh Beg compiled star
tables more accurate than the West would know until the 16th
century. He re-observed and corrected Ptolemy's star positions.
That his work was not more wid