State Museum of History of Uzbekistan, Tashkent

The museum traces its origins to the Turkestan Museum, founded in 1876, shortly after the Russian conquest, making it one of the oldest museums in Central Asia. Its collections grew through the 20th century with finds from archaeological excavations across Uzbekistan. Since 1970 it has occupied a large modernist building in the centre of Tashkent, originally built as a Lenin museum, with a facade of white marble and a lattice screen.

The collection includes hundreds of thousands of objects, of which a selection is displayed on several floors, arranged chronologically.

• Prehistory: stone tools and finds from Stone Age sites in Uzbekistan, including the cave of Teshik-Tash, where the remains of a Neanderthal child were found in the 1930s.
• Ancient Bactria and Sogdiana: ceramics, figurines, weapons and jewellery from the early cities of the region, and coins of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom founded after Alexander the Great.
• Buddhist art: the highlight for many visitors. From the Kushan period (1st–3rd centuries), when Buddhism flourished in southern Uzbekistan, come sculptures from the monasteries of Fayaz-Tepe and Kara-Tepe near Termez, including a famous limestone group of the Buddha with two monks under an arch. Other pieces show the meeting of Indian, Greek and Central Asian styles.
• Zoroastrian ossuaries: decorated clay boxes in which the bones of the dead were placed after exposure, according to Zoroastrian custom. Their reliefs show priests, deities and funeral rites.
• Sogdian and early medieval art: wall-painting fragments, carved wood and objects from the Sogdian cities, related to the paintings of Afrasiyab in Samarkand.
• The Islamic period: ceramics, glazed tiles, metalwork, manuscripts and coins from the Samanids to the Timurids and the khanates of Bukhara, Khiva and Kokand.
• The 19th and 20th centuries: the Russian conquest, the Soviet period and independence, with documents, photographs and objects.

Many travellers start their trip in Tashkent and then travel to Samarkand, Bukhara and Khiva. The museum gives the historical framework that makes the monuments more meaningful: the Sogdian merchants, the arrival of Islam, the Samanids, the Mongol conquest, Timur and his descendants, and the khanates. The Buddhist objects are particularly valuable, since few visitors reach the original sites near Termez in the far south.

Tashkent has many museums. Beyond this one, the most rewarding for visitors are the Museum of Applied Arts, in a beautifully decorated house, for crafts; the Amir Timur Museum near Amir Timur Square, on Timur and his dynasty; and the State Museum of Arts, with Russian, European and Uzbek painting. With two days in the city, choose two or three.

The Buddhist sculptures in the museum come from Termez, on the Amu Darya at the border with Afghanistan, where Buddhist monasteries flourished in the first centuries AD under the Kushan empire. The site of Fayaz-Tepe, excavated from the 1960s, revealed a monastery with a stupa, courtyards and wall paintings. Visitors who travel to Termez can see the ruins themselves, but the finest sculptures are here in Tashkent.

Location: in central Tashkent, near Amir Timur Square and Independence Square.

Metro: Mustaqillik Maydoni or Amir Temur Hiyoboni stations, about 10 minutes’ walk. See the Tashkent metro.

Tickets: an entrance fee, with an extra fee for photography; guided tours in English may be available.

Opening hours: usually closed one day a week. Check before you go.

Time needed: 1.5–2 hours.

Tips: a guide or audio guide helps, as English labelling is uneven. Combine with the Museum of Applied Arts for a full museum day.