Here are some phtos taken in Samarkand in July 1999. Eventually they will be worked into other Samarkand pages and some will be added to the Cities/Buildings Archive. I thought it would be worthwhile posting them now in part because some show important changes that have taken place in recent years in connection with the Tamerlane celebrations in 1996 (when a great push was made in restoration projects). Since this year I went to Samarkand equipped with a wider angle lens than before, several of the photos give a much better sense of the interiors of certain historic buildings than do the shots already posted.
The
new statue of Tamerlane as wise ruler, situated to the west of the Gur-i Amir near the
Hotel Samarkand.
The
Hasret Hisr mosque (mainly nineteenth century), recently restored.
View
from the Hotel Afrasiab toward the Gur-i Amir, with the Rukhabad mausoleum on the right.
This shows the way in which the area around the Rukhabad and Gur-i Amir has been
opened up, with the widening of the streets, the removal of other old buildings, and with
a lot of new landscaping. The Gur-i Amir's restoration continues although now mainly
in the interior.
A
closer view of the Gur-i Amir. The minarets were re-built from the level of the
roof.
This
model of the building, which can be seen in the Museum of the History of the Timurids in
Tashkent, gives an idea of what the complex presumably looked like before the buildings on
either side of the central mausoleum disappeared.
One of
the workmen restoring the inlay. The decisions made regarding the restoration have
sparked a lot of controversy. The lower part of the walls have been extensively
re-done, and the whole floor area under the dome where the cenotaphs are located has been
repaved with polished marble whose color may not be that of the original. Apparently
the locations of the cenotaphs have been shifted somewhat. As the pictures below
show, an electric chandelier has been suspended from the dome.
The restoration continues on the Bibi
Khanum mosque. Compare this picture with the seqence on the bottom of my page
concerning the building. Here one can see how the construction on the main eywan
(arched entrance) of the building is complete. Work on rebuilding the entrance eywan
is now well along.
This model, located in the exhibits of
the Museum of the History of Samarkand just across the street from the Registan, gives an
idea of the mosque's original appearance.
A couple of closer views of the
restored central part of the mosque.
Restoration work in the Shah-i Zinda
mausoleum complex also continues. When I was there in 1996, it seemed as though a
lot of the exerior structure of the oldest and holiest of the shrines, that of Qutum Ibn
Abbas (Kusam Ibn Abbas), was being torn apart. The building has now been restored,
and the inscription on the ancient wooden beams inside, which was largely exposed in 1996,
again largely covered up. [For photographs, see the Cities/Buildings Archive.] The
pictures shown here were taken in the Ziarethana, the room adjoining and just outside the
chamber that contains the cenotaph of the saint.
Back to my main Samarkand page.
© 1999 Daniel C. Waugh