For the Samarkand Clavijo and his comrades from the Castilian embassy had traversed present-day northern Iran. He and his team crossed the river Oxus, or Amu Darya, and entered Uzbekistan, and they did so at a pace quite beyond what they’d have been comfortable with. During the hectic journey some of his team members got ill health and exhausted by travel, they were pushed along by Timur’s expectations and by the systems of travel and communications installed in his realm. Several of them ill and were left behind, one of them named Gomez de Salazar died.
In the September of 1404, the Castilian diplomat Ruy González de Clavijo and his team entered through long, tunneled entrances and towering gateways, past arched recesses on either side where attendants would sit. They saw the gold and blue glazed tiles of different patterns and images of suns and lions, the arms, our guide noted, of the previous lord of Samarkand. He traveled more than 7,000 miles by foot, sail, horse and camel. He passed through meadows and deserts, seas and mountains. Clavijo described, there were delightful gardens, with flowing water and trees for fruit and shade.
Now he had reached Samarkand the capital of a vast new empire created by a military genius and patron of the arts named Timur (meaning “iron” in Persian). Henry III of Castile, had sent Clavijo to learn more about the man who Europeans called Tamerlane.
Clavijo told about the Samarkand in detailed description: the stores of “silks, satins, musk, rubies, diamonds, pearls ” imported from China, the painted elephants, vast tent pavilions with fluttering jeweled banners, and the frenzied pace of construction. He explained about the largest mosque in the city had been completed just before his arrival, but Timur ordered its gate to be torn down again because it lacked grandeur.
The arrival of Clavijo and the party of other ambassadors who he accompanied to the city of Samarkand provoked mild interest, but mainly on account of their strange clothes and quaint customs. Medieval Spanish and Catalans were backward in the world of the Silk Road and Central Asia. Upon their arrival in Samarkand he wrote that the party passed through a plain covered with gardens, and houses, and markets where they sold many things. After that they reached to the gates of the city after several hours travel through this lush hinterland, being greeted by ” six elephants, with wooden castles on their backs”: ” The ambassadors of Samarkand went forward, and found the Spanish men, who had the presents well arranged on their arms, and they advanced with them in company with the two knights, who held them by the armpits, and the ambassador whom Timur The Great had sent to the king of Castille was with them; when they saw him they laughed at him, because Al-Qazi was dressed in fashion of Castille”.
Clavijo described about the Hajji Muhammad Al-Qazi, a renowned Chagatai courtier who had visited the court of Castile in Toledo several years earlier. Hajji Al-Qazi had been sent by the Emperor to offer gifts and letters to the Iberian monarch – Clavijo was now in Samarkand to return the favor.
Clavijo and the others were brought to an older man in front of him they bowed, he was the son of a sister to Timur. After that they were brought before three small boys those were grandsons of Timur to whom they bowed and offered the letter from their king, after that they were brought in front of the great conqueror the Timur.
The great conqueror Emir Timur wore a silk robe and on his head, a large white hat set with a central ruby that was surrounded by pearls and gems. Emperor sat cross-legged on an embroidered carpet with pillows around him. Clavijo told that behind Timur there was a doorway to the palace and in front a fountain full of red apples.
Three times, the Clavijo and his companions bowed, one knee on the ground, arms crossed before their breast, bending forward. After that they were ordered then to rise and to come forward, for their host wished to see them. Timur eyesight was not what it once had been, he was almost near to 70.
Emir Timur said; the ambassadors sent by the king of Spain, who is the greatest king of the Franks, and lives at the end of the world. These Franks are truly a great people, and I will give best wishes to the king of Spain. It would have sufficed if he had sent you to me with the letter, and without the presents, so well satisfied am I to hear of his prosperous health. Things were going entirely good enough for diplomatic success and this was the success of a diplomat like Clavijo. That night the Castilians were shown their lodgings, where they settled in among the gardens, and that was the first step going to settle into the Clavijo embassy’s stay in Samarkand.
Clavijo narrated the beauty and detail of city, he said Samarkand stands in a plain, the city is surrounded by a rampart or wall of earth, with a very deep ditch. Samarkand city itself is rather larger than Seville a Spanish city, but lying outside Samarkand are great numbers of houses which form extensive suburbs. These houses spread on all hands for indeed the township is surrounded by orchards, extending in some cases to a league and a half or even two leagues beyond Samarkand which stands in their center. Clavijo elaborated that between these orchards pass streets with open squares; these all are densely populated, and here all kinds of goods are on sale with bread stuffs and meat.
There were finest and astonishing houses among these orchards outside the Samarkand including many palaces of Timur the Great. Furthermore, many of the government officials also here had their properties, palaces and beautiful houses, each standing within its orchard. Clavijo told that there were numerous gardens and vineyards surrounding Samarkand that a traveller who approaches the city sees only great height of trees and the palaces, houses were invisible. When we pass the streets of Samarkand, gardens outside and inside contained many water conduits and many gardens were the melon-beds and cotton growing lands.
The melons produced in the countryside of Samarkand are abundant and very good, and at the season of Christmas there are so many melons and grapes to be had that it is indeed marvelous. Clavijo write’s, every day camels bring with fully loaded with melons from the country and it is a wonder how many are sold and eaten in the market. In the countryside the melons being so abundant, at one season the people cure them, drying the same as is done with figs, which thus can be kept for use from one year’s end to the next. They slice the melons up into great pieces, removing the rind, when they are put to dry in the sun. As soon as these pieces are quite dry, they bind them one with the other storing them in hamper baskets and thus they keep good for a whole twelve month. Samarkand stretch beyond the suburbs of the great plains where are situated many small settlement these being all well populated, for here the immigrant folk are settled whom Timur brought towards this place from foreign lands that he has conquered. The province soil of Samarkand is most fertile producing great crops of wheat. There are abundant vineyards and fruit-trees: the livestock is magnificent, beasts and poultry all of a fine breed. This land of Samarkand is not only rich in food stuffs but also there are many factories of silk. They are professional and expert to make special fur linings for silk garments, and manufacture stuffs in gold and blue with other colors of diverse tints dyed.
The greatness and abundance of this great capital and its district is such as is indeed a wonder to behold: and it is for this reason that it bears the name of Samarkand. According to the Clavijo research he said about Samarkand: for this name would be more exactly written Semiz-kent, two words which signify “Rich-Town,” for Semiz [in Turkish] is fat or rich and Kent means city or township: in time these two words having been corrupted into the name Samarkand.