Samanid Mausoleum
Mausoleo de los Samaníes
- Date
- c. 892-943 · confidence medium
- Place
- Bukhara, Uzbekistan
- Credited to
- Samanid dynasty (commissioned by Ismail Samani for his family)
- Field
- Tools
What it is
A cubic fired-brick building with a dome on squinches and geometric decoration of bricks laid in relief imitating basketwork. It is the best-preserved example of Central Asian Islamic funerary architecture.
Sources differ on who ordered it and when; a construction between 892 and 943 is generally accepted.
What it led to
- a model of the square-plan domed mausoleum in Central Asia and Persia
- ornamental brickwork technique later developed in Timurid architecture
- an emblem of the Samanid cultural revival in Bukhara