Samanid Mausoleum
[4] The Samanids established their de facto independence from the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad and ruled over parts of modern Afghanistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan.
[5] Perfectly symmetrical, compact in its size, yet monumental in its structure, the mausoleum not only combined multi-cultural building and decorative traditions, such as Sogdian, Sassanian, Persian and even classical and Byzantine architecture, but incorporated features customary for Islamic architecture – a circular dome and mini domes, pointed arches, elaborate portals, columns and intricate geometric designs in the brickwork.
During the 10th century, Samanids' capital, Bukhara, was a major political, trade and cultural center that patronized science, architecture, medicine, arts and literature.
[1] Cultural and economic prosperity was fueled by Samanids' strategic positioning along the trade routes between Asia, Middle East, Russia and Europe.
[8] Before the time of Genghis Khan's siege and sack of Bukhara in 1220, the mausoleum is believed to have been buried in mud and sand from flooding and landslides, remaining so for centuries.
[3] During the Soviet era, some time after World War II, the cemetery that surrounded the Mausoleum was paved over, and an amusement park (still in operation) was built next to and around the building.
Within the city walls and in the immediate vicinity of the historical center of Bukhara there are architectural monuments of a thousand years old, the oldest of which is the Samanid mausoleum.
[13] With the fall of the dynasty (999) the area of the necropolis was gradually reduced, the mausoleums were destroyed, and in the XVI-XVIII centuries on its territory began to build urban residential neighborhoods.
In 1925, the scientific secretary of the Bukhara Commission for the Protection of Monuments of Antiquity and Art Musa Saidjanov organized the restoration of the facing of the dome of the building.
[3] The building's shape is cuboid, like the Kaaba structure of the Great Mosque of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, while heavy fortress-like corner buttresses are derived from Sogdian traditions of Central Asia.
The synthetic style of the tomb is reflective of the 9th and 10th centuries – a time when the region still had large populations of Zoroastrians in their early stages of conversion to Islam.
It is interesting that due to Islamic restrictions on use of imagery, Samanid Mausoleum decoration in mostly geometric in its layout and patterns, in comparison with the pre-Islamic Central Asian building traditions that blended architecture, sculpture and painting.
There is a notable consistency between the exterior and interior decor in terms of patterns, materials and approach and this signifies that the construction was most likely performed by the same person or team.
Careful studies of the type of materials, mortar, patterns, thickness and forms of historic layers were conducted before the restoration works began.
Its unknown creators harmoniously combined references to the prior regional traditions and deployed innovative structural elements, such as squinches, as well as new for the time features that are considered customary for the Islamic architecture worldwide.
Samanid Mausoleum is sometimes referred to as a "Jewel Box" due to its compact size and elegant, mathematically calculated proportions and rhythmic patterns of its intricate, unprecedented baked brick decoration.
People seemed to genuinely believe in this legend because long after his death, they would still lower written requests through an opening on the southern side of the mausoleum, hoping to receive a response on the following day.
However, until the early 20th century, a superstition persisted that if you wrote a plea for mercy and placed it at the foot of the grave, your request would be granted, and the response, if made by a righteous person with genuine faith, could be received in written form.
