Central Asian Architecture
Yurts
The nomadic people of Central Asia generally lived in yurts, portable houses made of a foldable wood frame with felted wool coverings over it. (This is actually a lot like our houses, which are also wood frame and sometimes use felt for insulation). These are some yurts.
Bibi Hanum Mosque, Samarkand (1300s AD)
Other people, who mainly lived in Russia, lived in small houses built from wood, like American log cabins. This was originally a Scandinavian idea, and the Vikings may have brought it to Russia.
Among the bigger buildings that people built in Central Asia were mosques and churches. People usually built mosques and churches out of stone.
A mosque in Uzbekistan from the 1100s AD, under Seljuk rule
The Samanids built large stone buildings in Central Asia, like the tomb of their rulers in what is now Uzbekistan, built about 900 AD. This tomb has some of the earliest pointed arches in the world, probably inspired by Islamic architecture further west. The Seljuk Turks built more mosques in Central Asia about 1000 AD. Soon after that, many people in Russia converted to Christianity and began to build churches like the ones they had seen in Constantinople.
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(a project)
To find out more about Central Asian architecture, check out this book from Amazon.com or from your library:
Islamic architecture
Indian Architecture
Medieval Architecture
Chinese Architecture
