Basand

Basand was a town of Chaghaniyan at the foot of the Boysun mountains, on the route leading north through the Iron Gate towards Samarkand. Medieval writers described a prosperous and well-defended place, with gardens and a sizeable population. After the Mongol invasion the settlement was rebuilt, and by the seventeenth century the name Boysun appears in the historical record. The surrounding mountains also yielded iron, while marble was quarried at Darband.