silk road trade. Pretty much every piece of cargo moving overland on the trade routes would eventually pass through the city, this meant that they were able to make a lot of money but also become an academic and cultural hotbed.
As far as I can work out despite being sacked and conquered multiple times, being sacked in and of itself seems to have not lead to a long term decline What I can gather and extrapolate as the main causes for its decline was diminished importance of overland trade, eventual loss of political power to Bukhara, then Moscow, and then being passed by the trans-siberian railroad.
Explanation:
i got this off a site called reddit if it helps any
1.One of the oldest cities in Central Asia, Samarkand was given the recognition it deserved in 2001 when UNESCO assigned it World Heritage Site status, acknowledging its importance as a crossroads of ancient cultures. This unique city has played a seminal role in the development of Islamic architecture and the arts.
