A place of immense human achievement now left empty. Only the ruin of its former glory remains. Merv became a prominent city under the Achaemenid empire and reached its peak during the Islamic Golden Age in the 12th and 13th centuries. When Mongols wanted to seize a city they offered two choices: surrender or annihilation. Unfortunately, for the cities of the Greater Khorasan region (Merv, Nishapur, Bukhara) they would learn the brutality of the Mongol attacks the hard way after they mistreated