By Roya Marefat

0 by Roya Marefat he many architectural Unlike the blunter Chingis, Timur was a splendors of Samarkand- Machiavellian ruler who frequently ran his the mosques, religious empire behind figureheads, but he was ev- schools, shrines, and mau- ery bit as determined as his predecessor. soleums, sparkling even to- Conscious of the symbolic power of ar- day with glazed tiles in la- chitecture, Timur commissioned works pis, turquoise, and gold-owe largely to the with posterity in mind, building not only in efforts of one man, the legendary con- Samarkand but in other areas of queror known to the West as Tamerlane. A Transoxania, including his birthplace, Kish. Turkicized Mongol from the Barlas tribe, He was usually ruthless with the people he Timur (1336-1405) ruled a vast empire that conquered, but he spared the lives of artists stretched at its height from India to Anato- and craftsmen to bring them to work in his lia and Damascus. Endowed with artistic vi- capital. Always concerned with legitimizing sion as well as military prowess, Timur laid his rule-he married a descendant of the foundations of an artistic renaissance Chingis Khan to compensate for the fact that was to mark the next two centuries of that he himself was not related to the ear- Islam and have a direct influence on the architecture of Iran and India. There is no more vivid portrait of Timur himself than that penned by historian Rent5 Grousset: "Tall, with a large head and deep reddish complexion, this lame man, ever coursing about the world-this crip- ple with his hand ever clasped about his sword, this bowman whose marksman- ship, as he 'drew the bow- string to his ear,' was as in- fallible as Chingis Khan's- This contemporary photograph of the Gur-i Amir ("King's Grave") dominated his age like complex features the gateway, the entry hall, and the fluted, melon- Chingis Khan before him." shaped double dome. WQ SUMMER 1992 33 CENTRAL ASIA lier conqueror-he created an architecture he would order that a building be redone. that fused Islamic elements with refined At the same time, he was obsessed with Persian artistry and symbols of the rugged speed, and the noblemen who supervised nomadic culture of the Turks and Mongols. his projects understood the literal meaning Timur was no passive patron of the arts. of deadlines. Court chronicles record many instances of When Timur his direct involvement in construction adopted Samarkand projects. His architectural feats expressed an ideology of grandeur and monumental- ity, and his visions often exceeded the tech- nical limits of his craftsmen. If unsatisfied, Plan of the GUY-iAmir complex, by Mina Marefat (after plans of Lisa Golombek and G. Pugachenkova) n 6N Roya Marefat, an architectural historian with Design Forum, specializes in the art and architecture of Central Asia and Iran. She has contributed to the Annotated and Illustrated Checklist of The Vever Collection (1988) and The Fabled Cities of Central Asia: Samarkand, Bukhara, Khiva (1989). Copy- right 0 by Roya Marefat. WQ SUMMER 1992 34 .-... CENTRAL ASIA as his capital in 1370, the former Persian would have been its portal had it not been city was still recovering from the Mongol for the Milky Way." devastations of the previous century. The By far, though, the best-known structure palaces that once lined the river were in Timur commissioned in Samarkand is the ruins, and none of the city walls remained mausoleum known as Gur-i Amir. Although standing. The brick, adobe, and stone rem- it eventually became his own resting place, nants of the old city were little more than he ordered it built in 1404 for his grandson ghostly reminders of a rich Persian, Turkic, and heir, Muhammad Sultan, who had died and Islamic heritage. Timur quickly in battle the year before at age 29. Dissatis- brought new life to his capital, commission- fied with the initial result, Timur ordered ing numerous gardens, pavilions, and pal- his workers to make it grander. Clavijo re- aces for his personal pleasure. These works ported that the command was carried out moved poets to think of Samarkand as "the in 10 days, but the detailed execution of the paradisiac city," and Ruy Gonzales de structure casts doubt on his account. Clavijo, the Spanish ambassador to the Typifying the Timurid emphasis on a court of Timur, confirmed the accounts of unified design for clusters of structures, the their magnificence: Gur-i Amir was built not as a single monu- ment but as part of a larger complex, in- The garden where this festival took place cluding three structures earlier commis- is very large and it is planted with many fruit-bearing trees with others that are to sioned by Muhammad Sultan. The most give shade, and throughout are led ave- conspicuous of these neighbors was a reli- nues and raised paths that are bordered gious college, or madrasah, but there was by palings along which guests might pass their way. Throughout the garden many also a dervish hospice and a public bath. tents had been pitched with pavilions of The entrance to the Gur-i Arnir (which colored tapestries for shade, and the silk in fact was erected by Timur's grandson) is hangings were of diverse patterns, some being quaintly embroidered and others a monumental gateway, or darwazakhana. plain in design. In the center of this gar- Measuring 12 meters high, it is elaborately den there was built a very fine palace the decorated in lapis tile with ornate Arabic ground plan of which was a cross. The interior was all most richly furnished calligraphy and lush vegetal motifs. The ap- with hangings on the walls. pearance of inscriptions on buildings, nei- ther new nor limited to funerary structures, Inspired by mosques he saw during his was integral to Islamic architecture from India campaign in 1398-1 399, Timur com- its inception. The dedicatory, religious, and missioned the building of a monumental pious sayings were interwoven in the build- congregational mosque, known today as ings, often providing information about the Bibi Khanum. Some 400 to 480 marble col- date of construction, the patron, the umns, hauled from quarries by 95 ele- builder, and the function of the edifice. phants that Timur brought back from Hin- (The architect of the gateway inscribed his dustan, helped to support what historians name and birthplace in a cartouche on the Lisa Golombek and Donald Wilber call facade: Muhammad b. Mahmoud al-bana "one of the most colossal monuments ever Isfahani.) The geometric and vegetal orna- built in the Islamic world." From India, the mentation derived from an even older Mid- conqueror also brought stonemasons to die Eastern art and architecture, but they construct a building whose dome, chroni- came into wider use after the rise of Islam clers said, "would have been unique had it because of the faith's prohibition against not been for the heavens, and unique the making of figural images. The artists of WQ SUMMER 1992 35 -..? CENTRAL ASIA architectural form derived from ancient Persia, its name originally being synonymous with the word palace. (The famous iwan of the Sassanian Persian palace, Taq-i Kisra, in Ctesipohon, was so grand in its dimensions-35 meters in height, 25 in width, 50 in depth-that subsequent builders tried, usually with- out success, to equal it.) Functioning as a transitional zone between the exterior A detail of the gateway built by Ulugh Beg in 1434 provides a fine example of the arabesque motif and Timurid tilework. and the interior, the three- sided hall was incorporated in secular and religious ar- the Islamic world transformed the natural- chitecture throughout Central Asia, as well istic forms into elaborate abstract figures, as in the common courtyard house. generally known as arabesques. The vaulted roof of the iwan in Gur-i Beyond the darwazakhana is a square Amir is richly decorated with a honeycomb courtyard measuring 32.5 meters on each design called muqamas, the individual cells side, with walls that still retain remnants of of which are in square, rhomboid, almond- rich tile mosaics. In the time-consuming shaped, and barley grain patterns. In the and costly method of tilework known as Gur-i Amir the cascading muqarnas is mosaic faience, each individual color was made of stucco and is decorative rather fired separately, cut to the desired shape, than structural. Applied to both the interior and fitted into place. This technique, origi- and exterior of buildings, the muqamas nally developed in Iran, was introduced to symbolized the vault of heaven and the Samarkand during the building of the tomb complex composition of the cosmos. of Timur's sister and then used in other The tomb chamber itself, octagonal on structures. The decoration of the courtyard the outside, is capped by a high drum on included both floral and vegetal orna- top of which sits a melon-shaped dome. mentation, at times intertwined with ele- The dome in Islamic funerary architecture gant Arabic calligraphy. The floral and veg- has a long tradition. In fact, both the Per- etal motifs had great symbolic significance sian and Arabic words for it eventually in tomb architecture because of the associ- came to be synonyms for tomb. How this ation of the garden with paradise in Islam. association came about is not entirely clear. Appropriately, the Arabic terms for tomb Some scholars see the influence of Turco- and garden are the same word: rawza. Mongol society. The tent, or yurt, of the no- Directly across the courtyard from the mads was used not only as a dwelling but gateway stands the tomb chamber.

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