Muhammad Bashshar Mausoleum

Muhammad Bashshar Mausoleum

 

a monument of medieval Tadzhik architecture (in the village of Mazari-Sherif, in the Tadzhik SSR, near Pendzhikent). It was apparently built in the 11th or 12th century.

The mausoleum has a strictly organized interior, with rooms situated along three parallel axes. A spacious, domed hall is in the center. The mausoleum has an 11th-century mihrab. The portal, which was added in 1342 and 1343, is lavishly embellished with terra-cotta (some of which is carved) and majolica tiles. The portal stands out against a background of smooth plastered walls and domes.

REFERENCE

Trudy Tadzhikskoi arkheologicheskoi ekspeditsii. . . , vol. 3. Moscow-Leningrad, 1958. (Materialy i issledovaniia po arkheologii SSSR, no. 66. Article by L. S. Bretanitskii.)