Economy
The oasis is irrigated by an elaborate system of canals cut from the Murghab. The country has at all times been renowned throughout the East for its fertility. Every kind of cereal and many fruits grow in great abundance, e.g. wheat, millet, barley and melons, also rice and cotton. Cotton seeds from archaeological levels as far back as the 5th century are the first indication that cotton textiles were already an important economic component of the Sassanian city. Silkworms have been bred. The Turkomans possess a famous breed of horses and keep camels, sheep, cattle, asses and mules. Turkomans are excellent workers in silver and noted as armourers. One of the discoveries of the 1990s excavations was a 9th- to 10th-century workshop where crucible steel was being produced, confirming in detail contemporary Islamic reports: a major achievement in the history of technology.
Carpets from the region of Merv are sometimes considered superior to the Persian. They also make felts and a rough cloth of sheep's wool.
Merv was a notable centre from the production of crucible steel from the ninth century AD, when Islamic scholar, al-Kindi (AD 801-866) referred to the region of Khorasan as producing steel. This was made by a co-fusion process in which cast iron and wrought iron are melted together.
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