As part of a larger urban renewal project in the greater Nizamuddin area, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) is undertaking conservation works on the World Heritage Site of Humayun’s Tomb in partnership with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and co-funding from the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust.
Sweta Dutta,Sweta Dutta Posted: Jun 26, 2011 – New Delhi In sultry Delhi, 61-year-old Namandjon Mavlyanov finds the weather unbearable and the food strange. But nothing distracts him when he is at work, running his fingers through soil and shaking chemicals to get that “exact” shade, one that befits the tomb of Emperor Humayun whose ancestors came from Namandjon’s homeland.
After weeks of experiments with clay, quartz, types of soil and chemicals, a team of three artisans and an architect from Uzbekistan, have finally been able to recreate the five shades of tiles that the Mughals originally used on Humayun’s Tomb.
But why call in the Uzbeks? Because the tomb of Humayun, commissioned by his wife Hamida Banu Begum a few years after he fell to death in 1556, was modelled on Gur-e Amir, the mausoleum of his ancestor Timur in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
The tilework is a complex, traditional art form in Uzbekistan, passed down generations.
via For Humayun’s sake, Samarkand comes to Delhi with a secret – Express India.
Ismailimail 