GUR-E-AMIR

TOMB OF THE KING

■ INTRODUCTION: NIDHEE AGARWAL
■ PLAN AND ELEVATION: KAINAT FATIMA
■ ARCHITECTURE: IPSHITA VERMA
■ DESIGN: HARSHADA MANE
1890 1999
 INTRODUCTION
■ The Gur –e - Amir in Samarkand Uzbekistan is the Tomb of Timur or Tamerlane and seven
family members including his sons Miran Shah and Shah Rukh, grand sons Ulugh Beg and
Muhammed Sultan, spiritual advisor Mir Said Baraka and Timur’s teacher Sheikh Seyid
Umar said to be a descendant of Prophet Mohammed. Written in calligraphy on the dome
is the verse- ‘God is Immortality’ – attesting to the mortality of the human body.
■ The earliest part of the complex was built at the end of the 14 th century by the orders of
Muhammad Sultan Timur’s grandson and heir apparent. Construction of the tomb began in
1403 after the sudden death of Muhammed Sultan and was completed in 1404.
■ Timur of Mongol ancestry in what is today Uzbekistan, from a sheep rustler went on to
conquer Samarkand eventually ruling from Damascus to Delhi. He died on 18 th February
1405. In January 1405 he set out with an army of 200,000 soldiers towards the Chinese
empire from Samarkand. It was a freezing cold winter with deep snow and the army halted
in Otrar in Kazakhstan when he was taken ill. He died at about eight o’clock in the evening,
the doctors failing to cure him. His body was taken back to Samarkand to be interred
beneath the dome of the Gur-e - Amir Mausoleum in a steel coffin under a slab of dark
green jade six feet long, which was then the largest piece of the stone in the world. Timur
had built himself a smaller tomb in Shahrisabz near his AkSaray palace, how ever when
Timur died the passes to Shahrisabz were snowed in so he was buried here. Ulugh Beg
completed the work and the mausoleum became the family crypt of the Timurid Dynasty.
■ The mausoleum serves as the precursor
and model for later Mughal Tombs
including Gardens of Babur in Kabul,
Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi and the Taj
Mahal in Agra.
■ In 1740 King Nader Shah of the Afsharid Empire tried to carry away the Jade
Sacrophagus however it broke in two. Seeing it as a bad omen he placed it back.
■ After the end of the 17th century Samarkand was no more a capital and with
decline of status the monuments also suffered neglect. There was damage to the
mausoleum due to earthquakes also. Extensive restoration was undertaken after
the Second World War.
■ Timur’s tomb was opened shortly in 1941 under the soviet scientist Mikhail
Mikhaylovich Gerasimov, who reconstructed his facial features and affirmed he was
tall 5feet 7 inch, walked with a limp and had injury in his right hand. An inscription
on the grave read ‘ who ever opens this will be defeated by an enemy more
fearsome than I’. The next day Hitler attacked the Soviet Union.
PLAN AND ELEVATION
This plan, elevation and
sections of the mausoleum is
from the archeological part
of Turkestan Album.
■ This Mausoleum was constructed on the Southern side of the walled squared courtyard
and on the two sides of it were the madrasas and the khanqahs which no longer exist.
The Minarets were marked on each side of the courtyard, however, only two exist to this
day. The plan of the mausoleum forms a modified octagon on the exterior and a
projecting entrance that extends to the northern side of the octagon. The two flanks
decrease in length from both the sides. A monumental ribbed dome is placed on a tight
high drum highlights the monumental profile which is visible across the city.
■ The interior of this place comprises a square chamber that has a bay on each wall, a
stairway that is in the southeast corner and that connects to the cruciform crypt, an
octagonal zone of transition and an unusually steep hemispherical dome. Vertical flangs
Linked with timber are concealed between the two shells of the dome, supported by the
inner dome which thus provides the structure for the outer dome. In 1424 Ulugh Begh
further added a corridor which came to be known as the Gallery. This Gallery is entered
through the eastern way of the mausoleum. In the seventeenth century, the
construction of the Iwan on the western side of the Mausoleum began but it remained
unfinished.
Turkestan Album

ARCHITECTURE
■ The Gur-e Amir Mausoleum is a one-cupola building. It is famous for its simplicity of
construction and for its solemn monumentality of appearance.
■ It is an octahedral building crowned by an azure fluted dome. 
■ The exterior decoration of the walls consists of the blue, light-blue and white tiles
organized into geometrical and epigraphic ornaments against a background of
terracotta bricks. 
■ The dome, diameter 15 m and height 12.5 m is of a bright blue color with deep rosettes
and white spots. Heavy ribbed fluting gives an amazing expressiveness to the cupola. 
■ Inwardly the mausoleum appears as a large, high chamber with deep niches at the
sides.
■ The lower part of the walls covered are by slabs composed as one panel. Each of these
slabs is decorated with refined paintings.
Turkestan Album

DESIGN
The minaret is embellished with spiral Kufic inscription bands
containing words from the Islamic declaration of faith.

The bays with pointed arches still display polychrome ceramic

ornamentation consisting of geometric and floral motifs in
symmetrical arrangement. Above the arches are fragments of a
monumental Perso-Arabic ceramic inscription band extending
for much of the length of the main facade.
The muqarnas vaulted in the walls are made with laborious technique by applying mortar like glue, polychrome
paints and gold plating, lending it a three-dimensional effect. The muqarnas which served both decorative and
structural functions, it allowed for a smooth transition from the rectangular vault to the ceiling.
The decorative elements majorly consisted of geometrical
designs besides floral designs and calligraphy, typical of
Islamic architecture, adorning the walls, sarcophagus and
minarets.
Changes took place in the construction
of the dome structure around this time.
Two shelled dome structures were
created. The inner one providing
support and structure to the outer.
These domes were placed on high
drums to exaggerate the height of the
dome.
The cylinder beneath the dome and the
facades of the structure are adorned
with sacred inscriptions as well as
intricate geometric and floral patterns.
 The interior of the mausoleum is even more spectacular! 
Geometric panels shine with radiating stars, beside niches hung
with stalactites molded from papier-mache painted blue and gold.
 Intricate ceramic ornamentation,
including mosaics of five and six-
pointed star motifs. Above the
portal is a perso-arabic
inscription panel in flowing
thuluth (cursive) script.

Turkestan Album