Gur-Emir Mausoleum

From Registan there is a road leading to an ancient ensemble of the 15th — 18th centuries. Close to the Rukhabad mausoleum (the crypt of sheikh Burhanaddin Sagardji who died in 1388) there is a mosque, a pond and a "royal alley", which is paved with white slabs and runs to the buildings erected on the orders of crown prince Muhammad Sultan. The young prince put up a madrasah and khanaka for the secular education and training of children of noble families for state service. Only the entrance portal and part of the southern wall remain of these structures. The portal is still covered with exquisite mosaic made by Muhammad bini-Mahmud Isfahani. In 1403, Muhammad Sultan (who was Tamerlane's beloved grandson) died in Persia. A year later, Tamerlane built a grand mausoleum with at burial crypt all the southern roofed gallery of the courtyard. Death was lying in wait to Ta-merlane too. In February 1405, he died having hardly begun his last campaign. The burial was secret so as to avoid unrest. Tamerlane's body treated with musk and cam-phor was interred side by side with that of his grandson Muhammad' Sultan. Later, the two coffins were placed in the underground crypt of the mausoleum which became' known as Gur-Emir ("grave of the emir").

With time, the mausoleum became the family crypt of the Timuride dynasty. Under Ulughbek, an open-worked marble trellis was set up around the graves. A dark-green nephrite tombstone was placed at the grave of Tamerlane and on it was an inscription giving the ruler's genealogy. Next to Tamerlane, lie his sons Shakhrukh and Miranshakh and his grandsons Muhammad-Sultan and Ulughbek.

The well-known Soviet anthropologist M. M. Gerasimov studied the remains of Tamerlane, Shakhrukh,Ulughbek, and Miranshakh. He was able to reconstruct their life appearance. It turned out that historical testimony on the lameness and one-handedness of Tamerlane and on the assassination of Ulughbek were true.

Gur-Emir . . . Two men are buried there among others — two rulers of Samarkand. One was a conqueror, the other — an enlightener. One was a general, the other — an astronomer. Grandfather and grandson. Tamerlane and Ulughbek. The capital of the enormous empire of the lame ruler was born in blood and violence. The tremendous scope of construction pursued the single goal of impressing the simple mortals and extolling Tamerlane.

The centuries rolled by and today the minarets, domes and portals of madrasahs and mausoleums shine in the sun. These are mom ments not to Tamerlane, but the astronomer Ulughbek, to unknown architects, the skilled craftsmen, to the people of Samarkand.