Konye-Urgench Museum

Turkmenistan


The simple Konye-Urgench Museum is housed in the early-20th-century Dash Medressa, just before the main mausoleum complex. It includes some ancient Arabic texts and a few interestingly labelled artefacts from Old Urgench (eg ‘blue polished eight-cornered thing’). Note the Christian symbols carved onto some of the stone pieces. Off the medressa courtyard are several rooms containing ethnographic displays of Turkmen culture, including a pottery workshop and carpet looms. To one side of the mosque is the Matkerim-Ishan Mausoleum, which is also early 20th century.