Uzbekistan: A ruler hunting leopards on elephant back. Detail from a section of the Afrasiab Murals, c. 650 CE

The Afrasiab painting is a rare example of Sogdian art. It was discovered in 1965 when the local authorities decided on the construction of a road through the middle of Afrāsiāb mound, the old site of pre-Mongol Samarkand. It is now preserved in a special museum on the Afrāsiāb mound. It is the main painting we have of ancient Sogdian art.

The painting dates back to the middle of the 7th century CE. On the four walls of the room of a private house, three or four different countries neighbouring Central Asia are depicted. On the northern wall China (a Chinese festival, with the Empress on a boat, and the Emperor hunting), on the Southern Wall Samarkand (the Iranian world: a religious funerary procession in honor of the ancestors during the Nowruz festival), on the eastern wall India (as the land of the astrologers and of the pygmies, but the painting is much destroyed there).

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