Ancient Kuva

History

Kuva is one of the valley's oldest towns, its origins dated by archaeologists to the 3rd century BC. It stood on the ancient caravan road linking Fergana with Kashgar. As Kuba it appears in the Hudud al-'Alam and in the works of the Arab geographers al-Istakhri, Ibn Hawqal and al-Muqaddasi: in the 10th century the city comprised a citadel, a shahristan and a rabad, enclosed by walls with towers and gates, and in Fergana it was second in size only to Akhsikath. In 739 Nasr ibn Sayyar, governor of Khorasan and Transoxiana, is recorded as besieging Kuva. The city was destroyed in the Mongol invasion of the early 13th century, but its ruins survive.

Excavations in 1956–1958 uncovered a Buddhist temple of the 7th–8th centuries in the rabad. It stood on a solid platform 3.6 metres high and was destroyed during the Arab conquest. Fragments of clay statues of the Buddha and Buddhist deities came from the temple, along with many everyday objects — proof that Buddhism also had a following in pre-Islamic Fergana.

Today

The archaeological zone in the centre of Kuva lies beside the town park, close to a monument to Ahmad al-Farghani: the 9th-century astronomer's name points to Fergana, and some scholars believe he was born in Kuva itself. To the untrained eye the ruins are little more than mounds and wall stumps, so come with a guide or look at the finds in the Fergana museum first.