Gur Emir, the tomb of Timur (Tamerlane) in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, neglected and crumbling. Photo c. 1905-1915.
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs, Prokudin-Gorskii Collection.
Tamerlane's Tomb, after renovations, 2007.
Photo by untipografico on Flickr.com.
Comments
There’s something about a tomb crumbling which seems somehow justified. Kind of like the buzzards I saw yesterday sitting in a “dead” tree. I wonder what it is about us that makes us not want to let go, but instead preserve. We do love our monuments.
Wow! What an incredible transformation!
Magnificent. I do love history, but I’m afraid I know very little Asian history. I’ll have to spend some time on your site and read about Tamerlane.
You’re welcome anytime, Randall! Feel free to browse around, ask questions in the forum, click on lots and lots of pages… (Heh heh, I crack myself up!)
But seriously, if anyone out there has any little nagging question about the history of Asia, feel free to ask! I probably won’t know the answer off the top of my head, but I love doing the research!
What a transformation. I think I prefer it when renovations aren’t such a change from the original, though.
What amazing before an after photos!
Would that I get such a facelift for the afterlife. Tamerlane is stylin’ now.
The tomb’s cursed,the tomb’s cursed!!!!
I read in some researcher’s thesis that inside the so called Timur’s tomb there is an inscription like “SHUR SARDUL” that means “Brave Lion” or some thing like. Hindus believe that these and such structures were based on HINDU architecture,and as usual the Muslim graves it/them, putting their own “SIGN BOARDS”.
Learned and honey historians may throw light on this aspect. The history says Muslims had no knowledge of science and engineering, nor do they have much of it ,now too.