Afrasiab Murals in Samarkand: An Ancient Connection Between Uzbekistan and Korea
Several years ago, during a work trip to Samarkand with a group of professors, I visited the Afrasiab Museum. Samarkand is usually associated with places such as Registan, Shah-i-Zinda, and the blue-tiled monuments that have made the city famous around the world. Afrasiab, however, takes visitors much further back into the history of Samarkand.
Inside the museum, I saw the famous Afrasiab murals. Among the many people represented in the paintings, two figures were especially interesting to me because the museum identified them as Korean envoys.
At that time, I was standing in Uzbekistan looking at figures connected with the Korean Peninsula. Years later, after returning to my everyday life in Korea, I unexpectedly encountered the Afrasiab murals again—this time at the National Museum of Korea in Seoul.
Seeing the same historical story presented in two different countries made me want to look more closely at the murals, the ancient city they came from, and the connection between Samarkand and the distant Korean Peninsula more than thirteen centuries ago.
My Visit to the Afrasiab Museum in Samarkand
The Afrasiab Museum is located beside the archaeological site of ancient Afrasiab, an early part of Samarkand's long history. During my work trip, visiting the museum gave me a very different view of the city from the one visitors usually experience at Registan and other later monuments.
One of the most memorable parts of my visit was seeing the surviving Afrasiab wall paintings. Their faded colors and fragmented condition immediately make you aware of how much time has passed since they were created.
What Is Afrasiab?
Afrasiab, or Afrosiyob in Uzbek, is the archaeological site of ancient Samarkand. Long before the monuments that most visitors associate with the city today, this area was an important urban center of Sogdiana, a historical region of Central Asia.
Samarkand's location placed it within routes connecting different parts of Eurasia. Traders, diplomats, travelers, religions, objects, and ideas moved across Central Asia. This wider setting is important when looking at the Afrasiab murals because the paintings show people associated with different regions meeting in ancient Samarkand.
For me, this is one of the most interesting things about Afrasiab. It introduces a much older Samarkand than the city most visitors know through its famous Islamic monuments, while also showing that the city was already connected with a wider world.
The Famous Afrasiab Murals
The Afrasiab murals were discovered in 1965 during road construction around the ruins of ancient Afrasiab. According to the exhibition information I later saw at the National Museum of Korea, the paintings were found in a square room believed to have been used as a reception space in the residence of a ruler or noble.
Parts of the room had already been damaged, but important sections of the paintings survived. The murals include processions, groups of people, animals, attendants, weapons, and figures wearing different styles of clothing.
One of the important clues used to date the paintings is a Sogdian inscription on the western wall. The museum exhibition explains that it refers to King Varkhuman of Samarkand and to envoys arriving from other places. The National Museum of Korea dates the paintings to around the middle of the 7th century.
This setting helps explain why so many different people appear in the paintings. The murals give us a glimpse of ancient Samarkand not simply as a local city, but as a place involved in diplomacy, travel, and contact with people from distant regions.
The Two Figures Identified as Korean Envoys
For me, the most fascinating detail is relatively small compared with the size of the entire mural. Two men appear standing side by side. They wear distinctive hats decorated with long feathers and carry swords.
At the Afrasiab Museum, the reconstruction I photographed identifies the two figures as Korean envoys. Years later, at the National Museum of Korea in Seoul, I saw the same figures presented as ancient Koreans. The Seoul exhibition explains that their distinctive feather-decorated hats are an important clue in identifying them.
What I found especially remarkable was where these figures appear: on a seventh-century wall painting in Samarkand, thousands of kilometers from the Korean Peninsula.
Seeing Afrasiab Again in Seoul
I did not expect to encounter Afrasiab again when I visited the National Museum of Korea in Seoul.
In the museum's Central Asia gallery, the region is introduced as a “Crossroads Between Eastern and Western Civilizations.” That description immediately seemed appropriate for the story told by the Afrasiab murals.
Soon after entering the gallery, I came across a large display of the Afrasiab west-wall mural. Seeing it in Seoul felt very different from seeing the surviving paintings in Samarkand.
The Seoul display is not the original mural. It is a reconstructed replica of the Afrasiab west wall. According to the exhibition information, it was produced by the Northeast Asian History Foundation in cooperation with the Afrasiab Museum in Samarkand over two years, from 2013 to 2014.
The museum explains that the reconstruction was based on high-resolution digital images of the original mural taken at the site, together with scientific research and existing copies.
I found this detail especially interesting because the exhibition itself was another connection between Samarkand and Korea. In Samarkand, I had seen the murals as part of the history of an ancient Central Asian city. In Seoul, the same mural was presented within a broader story about Central Asia and its historical connections with Korea.
The Korean Figures in the Seoul Exhibition
In Seoul, the two figures I had noticed in Samarkand were given much more attention. A large line drawing makes their feathered hats, clothing, swords, and posture easier to see.
The National Museum of Korea explains that the feather decoration on their hats is important in identifying the figures as Koreans. The exhibition also presents examples of similar feathered headwear in material connected with ancient Korea.
For me, seeing this explanation in Seoul changed the way I looked at the same mural. In Samarkand, my attention had been mainly on Afrasiab and the history of the ancient city. In Seoul, I began to notice more clearly why these two small figures were important to the Korean side of the story.
What Do the Afrasiab Murals Show Us?
When looking at the two figures today, it is easy to think immediately about Uzbekistan and Korea. But the world of the seventh century was very different from the modern countries we know now.
Afrasiab belonged to the world of ancient Sogdiana, while the Korean Peninsula was home to several kingdoms. For that reason, I see the mural less as a story about modern countries and more as evidence of how widely people could travel and communicate across Eurasia.
The paintings show that people from different regions could meet in Samarkand through diplomacy, travel, trade, and other forms of contact. Objects, ideas, religions, and artistic influences also moved along the routes that crossed Central Asia.
This is one of the reasons the Afrasiab murals are so interesting to me. We often learn history in separate categories—Central Asian history, Korean history, Chinese history, and so on. But historical connections did not always follow the boundaries that we use today.
The two figures connected with the Korean Peninsula are only a small part of the surviving mural, yet their presence in Samarkand gives us a reason to think about how far those ancient networks could reach.
Seeing the Same History From Two Countries
My two encounters with the Afrasiab murals happened in very different circumstances.
The first was during a work trip to Samarkand, when I visited the Afrasiab Museum with professors and saw the surviving paintings at the archaeological site where they had been discovered.
The second came years later in Seoul. This time, I was looking at a carefully reconstructed version of the same wall and reading explanations that focused particularly on the figures connected with ancient Korea.
In Samarkand, I saw the murals mainly as part of the long history of a city in Uzbekistan. In Seoul, I encountered them as part of a wider story connecting Central Asia with the Korean Peninsula.
The mural had not changed, but my perspective had.
For me, there is something special about seeing this history from both places. Uzbekistan is where I come from, while Korea has been part of my everyday life for many years. Finding a historical story that crosses the geographical distance between these two parts of the world naturally felt personal.
The Afrasiab murals belong to a world very different from Uzbekistan and Korea today. Yet they remind us that Central Asia and East Asia were not completely separated. People traveled, diplomatic contacts were made, and ideas and objects moved across long distances.
Sometimes history becomes most interesting when we discover that places we think of as far apart were connected long before our modern borders existed.
