Fluted Dome , Bibi Khanym, Samarkand

 

Timur or Taimurlane was a Turqo-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid empire in and around modern-day Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia.Bibi Khanym was Timur’s favourite wife.  The Bibi Khanym complex in Samarkand was built in 1399–1405 with the spoils of Timur’s (Tamerlane’s) campaign in India.This was one of the Islamic world’s biggest mosques which began to crumble almost as soon as construction was completed.It finally   collapsed  in an 1897 earthquake. What is seen today is the reconstruction achieved in the 1970s based on the exact plans of the original.

In the ambitious construction of three domes of Bibi-Khanym mosque, sophisticated in Timur’s time, one important innovation was applied: a two-fold construction, where the internal dome hall does not correspond to the external either in  form nor by height  There is a hollow space between the inner ceiling and the outer cupola. This dome construction allowed the main hall of the mosque to be of 30 m high above the mihrab. Meanwhile, the 40 m high outer dome of the main building could be designed for pimpression and visibility. This scheme was applied also to the lateral dome structures that allowed making modest buildings the figuration tower-like structures with elegant melon-shaped and longitudinally ribbed outer dome

The fluted pattern of the dome is breathtaking in splendour, the craftsmanship involved is superb.

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Prints : Available as Giclee print on finest quality paper or  canvas. International shipment

Sizes available: 8 x 12″(203 x 305 mm); 12 x 16″(305 x 410mm); 18 x 24″(457 x 610 mm); 24 x 32″ (610 x 813mm)

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