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<p><strong>Welcome to ARCHNET, an open access, interdisciplinary, intellectual resource focused on the built environment of Muslim societies.</strong></p><p>Focused on the built environment of Islamic civilizations past and present, we seek to:</p><ul><li>Facilitate excellence in scholarship and professional work by&nbsp;providing reliable information and ready access&nbsp;to vetted, high-quality textual and multimedia resources&nbsp;focused on architecture, urbanism, environmental and landscape design,&nbsp;heritage&nbsp;conservation, economic and environmental sustainability, community development and resilience in the face of rapid change, and related topics.</li><li>Enable teaching and learning in these domains by providing educators with reliable, effective pedagogical material and teaching aids.&nbsp;</li><li>Serve as a platform through which scholars, practitioners, and institutions can bring their work to new global audiences.&nbsp;</li><li>Promote intercultural understanding and dialogue through reliable, high-quality, peer-reviewed material on the diversity of and pluralism within Muslim societies and the interaction between Islamic and other religious, cultural, and philosophical traditions as it relates to architecture and urbanism.</li><li>Enable easy access to a wide variety of resources via a custom-built, web-based, mobile-friendly platform optimized to minimize financial, infrastructural, linguistic, and other barriers to access.&nbsp;&nbsp;</li></ul><p>Launched in 2002 after several years of development, ARCHNET is a pioneering digital resource that has proven a reliable authority on the built environment of Muslim societies, past and present.&nbsp;</p><p>ARCHNET is a partnership between the <a href="https://www.archnet.org/collections/1342" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Aga Khan Documentation Center, MIT Libraries</a> (AKDC@MIT) and the <a href="https://www.archnet.org/authorities/1903" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Aga Khan Trust for Culture</a> (AKTC), with support from the <a href="https://www.archnet.org/collections/50" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture</a> at Harvard and MIT.&nbsp;ARCHNET is developed and maintained by <a href="https://www.performantsoftware.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Performant Software Solutions</a>.</p>

About

Samarkand 

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digital graphic

IAA705813

place

funerary

mausoleum

religious

mosque

Uzbekistan

ca. 1404/ca. 806 AH [Mausoleum: 1404-1405/808 AH; mosque: ca. 1404/ca. 806 AH]

Import

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slide

IAA2871

Maqbara-i Tuman Aqa

Ernst Cohn-Wiener

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ICW0509

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ICW0511

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ICW0512

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ICW0513

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ICW0514

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ICW0515

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ICW0516

Roya Marefat

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IHU0341

<div>Samarkand, located on the ancient silk route through the Zerafshan Valley, is one of the oldest cities in Transoxiana that is no stranger to natural or man-made upheavals, with one of the earliest known armies to invade it being that of Alexander the Great in the fourth-century BC. After Alexander the Great died, this city and other parts of Central Asia formed a key part of the Selucid Kingdom.</div><div><br></div><div>Under the Umayyad Caliph Omar II, Islam continued to spread rapidly through the region, assisted by the establishment of ribats and khans. By the time that power shifted from the Umayyads to the Abbasids, Western Asia was firmly established as a productive, integral part of the Islamic world, as it had then evolved. Up to the twelfth-century and through the Mongol invasion, the region of Samarkand's history is woven with revolts, intrigues, shifting alliances, throughout all, and especially during Tahirid and Samanid periods, Muslim rule was consolidated in Transoxania.</div><div><br></div><div>In spite of the general devastation caused by the Mongol advance, Samarkand rebounded rather easily after the death of Chingiz-Khan, because of its position along a main commercial artery. In 1336, Timur was born near Shahrisahz. In 1370 he built a new citadel at Samarkand, used it as a training ground for his army, and as a base for his first major victory against Herat in 1381. Timur made overtures to England and Spain encouraging them to establish trade agreements with him, and as a result a Spanish ambassador, named Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo, left for Samarkand in 1403, arriving one year later in a state of total exhaustion. In spite of his weariness, he wrote a glowing description of the city for his sovereign, which said, in part, that: "I must describe that city for you, telling of all that is there to be seen and of all that Timur has accomplished there to embellish his capital. Samarkand stands in a plain, and is surrounded by a rampart or wall of earth, with a very deep ditch. The city itself is rather larger than Seville; lying outside Samarkand are great numbers of houses which form extensive suburbs. These lie spread on all sides for indeed the township is surrounded by orchards and vineyards, extending in some cases to a league and a half or even two leagues beyond Samarkand which stands in their centre. In between these orchards pass streets with open squares; these are all densely populated, and here all kinds of goods are on sale [...] Among these orchards outside Samarkand are found the most noble and beautiful houses, and here Timur has his many palaces and pleasure grounds [...] invisible. Through the streets of Samarkand, as through its gardens outside and inside, pass many water-conduits, and in these gardens are the melon-beds and cotton-growing lands. Beyond the suburbs of Samarkand stretch the great plains where are situated many hamlets these being all well populated, for here the immigrant folk are settled whom Timur has caused to be brought hither from all the foreign lands that he has conquered. The richness and abundance of this great capital and its district is such as is indeed a wonder to behold [...] So great therefore was the population now of all nationalities gathered together in Samarkand that of men with their families the number they said must be about 150,000 souls. Of the nations brought here together there were to be seen Turks, Arabs and Moors of diverse sects, with Christians who were Greeks and Armenians. On the one part of Samarkand stand the Castle which is not built on a height, hut is protected by deep ravines on all its sides: and through these water flows, which makes the position of the castle impregnable. It is here that His Highness keeps his treasure, and none from the city may enter save the governor of the Castle and his men. Within its walls however Timur holds in captivity upwards of a thousand workmen; these labour making plate-armour and helms, with bows and arrows, and to this business they are kept at work in the service of His Highness."</div><div><br></div><div>The castle that Clavijo refers to is the Kok Sarai, Timur's famous "Blue Palace" which was visible from everywhere in the city, but today, little remains of the Citadel Timur built. Many of his other projects in the town have been reconstructed so that it is now possible to comprehend the enormity of Timur's architectural interests. The grand scale of his building projects changed the whole scope of the town with architectural complexes creating a strong and permanent impact on the form of Samarkand for centuries to come.</div><div><br></div><div>The largest of these is the Masjid-i-jami' or Bibi Khanum which is one of the largest monuments ever built in the Islamic world. The axis that linked the entrance to the courtyard was connected to the Registan by a covered bazaar. Timur also built the Gur-i-Amir mausoleum for his grandson which, like the Bibi Khanum, was intended to have a complex with a khanqah (hospice) and a madrasa (religious seminary). This complex, completed around 1404 AD, is generally regarded as one of the earliest examples of Timurid formal architecture, laid out with two public buildings enclosing an urban square. During this period a synthesis of the arts emerged in Samarkand, with a fusion of local tradition with those of the 'imported" arts of the conquered lands resulting in an organic link between architecture and painting, wood and stone carving, ceramic and metal ware.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>Internecine wars in the latter half of the fifteenth-century affected the fate of Samarkand which was governed by various rulers, including Babur, for short periods of time. Finally, from 1500 to the end of the sixteenth-century it was ruled by the Shaibanids. During this period Samarkand continued to be the centre of the economic and political life of the region. Construction of roads, bridges and irrigation canals continued. Although chronicles record that two enormous madrasas, the size of the Egyptian pyramids, were built to the north of the Registan square, no trace of these remains. Few monuments of this period have survived.</div><div><br></div><div>By the beginning of the nineteenth-century separate kingdoms began to emerge and the khanates of Bukhara, Ferghana and Khiva became separate entities. Samarkand was absorbed into the kingdom of Bukhara. Towards the middle of the nineteenth-century Samarkand had become part of the Russian empire. The replanning of Samarkand during this period follows that of many other colonial towns in the East. Samarkand was divided into two parts -- the native or old town and the European town. European architecture was preferred to the indigeneous Central Asian style and the administrative buildings and residential quarters took on radically new forms. In housing, the concept of the apartment block replaced the courtyard house. Some years after the October Revolution of 1917, the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic was formed with Samarkand as its capital from 1924 to 1930. Subsequently the capital shifted to Tashkent and Samarkand became the second most important administrative centre of Uzbekistan. Samarkand today is the second largest city in Uzbekistan and remains an industrial and cultural centre.</div>

Samarkand

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Tomb of Tuman Aqa

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Mausoleum of Tuman Aqa

Tuman Aqa Mosque

Masjid-i Tuman Aqa

Masjid-e Tuman Aqa

Tuman Agha Tomb

<p><em>For more information see: </em><a href="https://www.archnet.org/collections/2377" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Timeline: Timurid</em></a></p><p><br></p><p><em>Central Asian dynasty founded by Timur which flourished from the end of the fourteenth century to the end of the fifteenth.</em></p><p><br></p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Timur was born a member of the Barlas tribe and claimed descent from the Mongol Khan Chatagay. By 1370/771 AH Timur had gained control of Samarkand and Balkh after which he spent ten years consolidating his control of Central Asia. From 1381/782 AH Timur extended the range of his operations and managed to gain control of Iran, Iraq, Syria, the Caucasus and Delhi. In 1402/804 AH Timur's excursions into Anatolia brought him into conflict with the Ottoman sultan Bayazit whom he defeated and captured at the battle of Ankara. One of the results of these wide-ranging conquests was the collection of skilled craftsmen from all over the Middle East who were used to enrich the new capital at Samarkand. Timur died in 1405/807 AH and was succeeded by his son Shah Rukh who ruled the empire from Herat where he had been governor during the reign of Timur. Samarkand was ruled by Shah Rukh's son Ulugh Beg whilst Fars was ruled first by his nephew Ibrahim. By the mid-fifteenth century the western provinces were mostly lost to the Turkmans leaving Herat as capital of a much diminished empire which continued until 1507/912 AH when it was taken over by the Turkmans.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The best preserved Timurid structure in Herat is the shrine of the mystic of Khwajeh 'Abdallah Ansari at Gazur Gah. The complex is built on the plan of a four-iwan madrassa and oriented to the qibla (i.e. east-west) with the entrance in the centre of the west facade. The entrance portal consists of a large iwan, half-octagonal in plan, leading into the rectangular central courtyard. There is a mosque and cells for mystics at the western end, whilst at the eastern end is a shallow iwan set into a tall pishtaq.</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The main building material employed for imperial monuments was baked brick although dressed stone was used in Azerbayjan. The standard brick form was square (24-27 cm per side and 4-7 cm thick) whilst cut or moulded bricks were relatively rare compared with earlier periods. Mortar was usually quick-setting gypsum plaster rather than the more common lime plaster. The standard method of exterior decoration was tile revetments which were on a larger scale than in previous periods. Two main forms of tilework were used, tile mosaic, with individual coloured pieces cut to form patterns, and underglaze-painted tiles known as 'haft rangi' (seven colours). The underglaze-painted tiles tended to be of a lower quality but were useful for covering large areas.</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A large variety of arch forms were used including round, two-, three-, and four-centre arches, although the most common was the three-centred arch with a high crown, where the height of the arch was more than half the height of the entire opening. A large variety of domes and vaults were employed which displays the wide range of influences in Timurid architecture. One of the most significant vaulting forms employed was based on the use of wide transverse arches spanning between parallel walls. Vaults of various forms were then built to cover the area between each transverse arch to produce a large vaulted area. The vaults used to span the arches included tunnel or barrel vaults, stellar vaults and cross vaults, all of which produce characteristic humps on the roofs of buildings.</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Dome forms became increasingly distinctive under the Timurids with the development of double-shell domes where there is an outer dome and a shallower inner dome. The characteristic outer dome form consists of a tall 'melon-shaped' structure set on a high drum and decorated with ribs covered in decorative tilework.</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The most characteristic feature of Timurid imperial buildings is their massive scale, emphasized by huge entrance portals and thick minarets covered in tile decoration. Internally the buildings are slightly less well organized and they often have a large variety of smaller rooms whose relationship to the overall plan is not always evident.</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The most famous of the Timurid monuments are the shrine of Ahmed Yasavi at Turkestan (Yasi) in Khazakstan and the Masjid Jami' at Samarkand. The monuments are quite similar in their scale and conception with huge portal iwans behind which rise characteristic melon-shaped domes on high collars or drums. The Ahmed Yasavi tomb was built by Timur for his son Jahangir whilst the Masjid Jami' at Samarkand was built to commemorate the Timurid capture of Delhi. Other monumental projects carried out by Timur include the mausoleums at Shahrisbaz (his first capital) for his father Taraghay and the Gur-i-Amir for his son Muhammad Sultan at Samarkand. In addition Timur undertook massive civil engineering projects including building the towns of Baylaqan, Shahrukhiya and Iryah, the citadels and walls of Ghazui, Balkh and Samarkand.</p><p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The later Timurid buildings of Herat in Afghanistan mirror those of the early Timurid Empire, although many were destroyed in the nineteenth century. One of the most celebrated buildings in Herat was the mosque and madrassa built by the architect Qavam al-Din for the wife of Shah Rukh. Little is left of the complex except for two minarets at diagonally opposite corners of the mosque and a minaret and iwan from the madrassa.</p><p><br></p><p>Petersen, Andrew.&nbsp;<em>Dictionary of Islamic Architecture</em>. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.</p>

Maqbara-i Tuman Aqa
Samarkand, Uzbekistan

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Maqbara-i Tuman Aqa
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