High Middle Ages · Central Asia · War
1221
Mongols destroy Merv and Nishapur
1221
The oasis cities of Khorasan were systematically exterminated. At Nishapur, avenging a Mongol prince killed at its walls, the victors reportedly stacked severed heads in separate pyramids for men, women, and children. Persian civilization's heartland would not recover for generations. The irony was bitter: Nishapur had been the hometown of Omar Khayyam, whose quatrains on life's brevity now read as prophecy.
In context
Also in 1221 (3 other events on record)
- Genghis Khan defeats Jalal al-Din at the Indus · South Asia · War
- Dominic de Guzman dies in Bologna · Europe · Religion
- Fibonacci's sequence enters European mathematics · Europe · Science
Before and after in Central Asia
Before and after in War
Era
High Middle Ages (1000–1300), one of 1,306 events from that era on Saeculum.
Sources