Hong Kong Palace Museum | HKPM Talk Series | Window into Uzbekistan’s Heritage—Islamic Civilization Center

Dr Firdavs Abdukhalikov

Director of the Islamic Civilization Center in Uzbekistan

Abdukhalikov is known for founding Uzbekistan's first non-governmental mass media and broadcasting company.

He began his career in 1985 as a teacher and was promoted to the director of Samarkand Youth center in 1988. There, he opened the first television studio for production of entertaining shows and a year later in 1989 created his own company, the first in the country non-governmental TV channel STV.

In 1998, by presidential decree he was appointed vice-chairman of National Television and Radio Company of Uzbekistan. He was responsible for creation and launch of Yoshlar, a first TV channel for youth. That year he moved from Samarkand to the capital of the republic, Tashkent.

A year later, in 1999, Abdukhalikov became a chief consultant of the Press Service of the President of Uzbekistan, where he worked on media policy development and public communications until 2002. At the same time, he was elected as member of the Parliament of Uzbekistan and chaired the Committee on Youth Affairs, focusing on legislative initiatives for youth development and media freedoms. His term in parliament finished in 2004.

In 2003, Abdukhalikov founded the National Association of Electronic Mass Media of Uzbekistan (NAEMM), an organization that unified non-governmental media resources and supported independent journalism and television broadcasting. He chaired NAEMM until 2021.

In 2018, he was elected Chairman of the World Society for the Study, Preservation and Popularization of the Cultural Heritage of Uzbekistan (WOSCU). WOSCU’s international initiatives are organizing the annual International Congress of Cultural Heritage, publishing of volumes and scientific researches in multiple languages, establishing partnerships with museums, libraries, and research institutions worldwide.

From 2019 to 2024, Abdukhalikov was the General Director of the Uzbekistan Cinematography Agency.

Since 2024, Dr. Abdukhalikov is the head of the Islamic Civilization Center, cultural and academic institution initiated by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

Dr Farhod Maksudov

Director of the Anthropology Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan

Farhod Maksudov is a distinguished Uzbek archaeologist, Candidate of Historical Sciences (PhD equivalent), and Director of the Anthropology Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Uzbekistan. He has gained international recognition for his groundbreaking research on medieval high-altitude cities along the Silk Roads.

Farhod Maksudov serves as Director of the National Center of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan (formerly the Institute of Archaeological Research). He completed academic training and research at Brown University (United States).

In August 2019, he was awarded the Shukhrat Medal by Presidential Decree of the Republic of Uzbekistan in recognition of his significant contribution to the development of science.

His research focuses on the archaeology and environmental history of ancient and medieval societies in Central Asia. His principal areas of expertise include:

• Human–environment interactions in high-mountain landscapes;
• Reconstruction of the cultural landscapes of the Silk Roads;
• Application of advanced archaeological methods, including Geographic Information Systems (GIS), LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) remote sensing, paleoethnobotany, and archaeogenetics.

Farhod Maksudov is best known for his long-term collaboration with Professor Michael Frachetti of Washington University in St. Louis. Using airborne LiDAR technology, their international research team discovered two previously unknown medieval mountain cities—Tashbulak and Tugunbulak—located in the mountains of Uzbekistan at elevations exceeding 2,000 meters above sea level.

The findings, published in the journal Nature in 2024, fundamentally reshaped scholarly understanding of the Silk Roads. Whereas high-mountain regions had long been viewed primarily as barriers to movement, the research demonstrated that they were home to large, technologically sophisticated urban and metallurgical centers dating from the sixth to the eleventh centuries.

In recognition of this outstanding fieldwork, Farhod Maksudov and his colleagues received the prestigious Shanghai Archaeology Forum (SAF) Field Research Discovery Award.