In addition to being a military structure, the Ark encompassed what was essentially a town that, during much of the fortress's history, was inhabited by the various royal courts that held sway over the region surrounding Bukhara.

In the center of the Ark is located a large complex of buildings, one of the best-preserved being the mosque of Ul'dukhtaron, which is connected to legends of forty girls tortured and cast into a well.

The girl's father agreed to permit them to marry provided that Siyavush would first build a palace in the area bounded by a bull skin, obviously intended as an impossible task.

But Siyavush cut the bull skin into slender strips, connected the ends, and inside this boundary built the palace.

(This story of the bull skin also mirrors the classical legend of Dido and the founding of Carthage in North Africa, as recorded in antiquity.)

Abubakr says that when the last ruler to rebuild asked counsel of his wise men, they advised him to construct the fortress around seven points, located in the same relation to each other as the stars of the constellation Ursa Major.

When the soldiers of Genghis Khan took Bukhara, the inhabitants of the city found refuge in the Ark, but the conquerors smashed the defenders and ransacked the fortress.

During the Russian Civil War, the Ark was greatly damaged by Red Army troops under the command of Mikhail Frunze during the 1920 Battle of Bukhara.

[citation needed] There is also reason to believe that the last Emir, Mohammed Alim Khan (1880–1944), who escaped to Afghanistan with the royal treasury, ordered the Ark to be blown up so that its sacred places (especially the harem) could not be defiled by the Bolsheviks.

Archaeologists have proved that Bukhara emerged south of the lower course of the Zaravshan, which splits here into several channels, on a low marshy plain, above which a massive artificial hill of the city citadel - Ark still rises.

Legends attribute a long history to Bukhara and link its foundation to the mythical hero Siyâvash, whose tomb was supposed to be at the eastern gate of the Ark.

[10] In Kushan times, a village appeared at a short distance from the Ark and to the southeast of it, eventually transformed into a regularly organized Shahristan.

In the 7th century, the fortifications of the citadel were reconstructed and a new palace of Bukhar Khudahs was erected in it, the plan of which, as Narshakhi tells us, repeated the shape of the constellation of the Ursa Major for magical purposes.

In the 8th century, by the arrival of the Arabs there were a palace of Bukhar Khudahs, the sacred tomb of the legendary hero Siyâvash and a temple, which Qutayba ibn Muslim turned into a mosque.

During the Samanid period, between the western high facade of the Ark and the wall of the rabad, the Registan Square was created, and a palace with a portal was built here, which al-Istakhri recognized as the grandest in the countries of Islam.

From 1970 to 1974, significant stationary excavations were conducted on the Ark by a special archaeological team under the overall leadership of the academician of the Uzbekistan Academy of Sciences, Ya.

[13] In 1979–1980, for the first time in the history of archaeological research of the Bukhara Ark, a stratigraphic trench (6x6 meters) allowed for deeper exploration of the mainland layer.

[15] In preparation for the 2,500th anniversary of Bukhara, on the initiative and under the leadership of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov (1990–2016), restoration work was carried out on the Ark.