Astanababa

Astanababa (Russian: Астана-Баба) is a town in the Kerki District of the Lebap Province of Turkmenistan.

[1] The site was first studied by Russian orientalist Boris Litvinov in the fall of 1899.

[1][3][4][a] A square structure, three of its walls have blind niches; the brickwork is intensely decorative — Paul Brummell noted it to be among the finest examples of 11th c. Turkmen architecture.

[1] That the mausoleum did not become a shrine indicates that no saint was buried; it might have been a person from the secular spheres or none at all.

[3][b] The complex — primarily, a set of four domed rooms — has been progressively expanded over the centuries.