Description
The mausoleum is a decagonal brick tower rising to a height of approximately twenty-five metres. It is built above a vaulted crypt and sits on a shallow base made of large blocks of red diorite. A flat roof raised on a tapering, decagonal drum covers the slightly pointed inner dome. The single entrance to the tower's circular interior faces east, a second entrtance leads into the crypt, whose vaulted ceiling is supported by a massive central pier made of brick.
The solid brick walls of the mausoleum are pierced by two small windows facing West, with an additional window above the main entrance. A band of inscription in Kufic characters composed of turquoise tiles runs below the muqarnas cornice. The recessed surface of its twelve exterior facets are covered with carved geometric motifs on brick, which are highlighted by turquoise tiles, and set in a rectangular frame that includes a small muqarnas crown. Inside, the burial chamber is circular in plan, with bare walls.
The Mausoleum of Mu'mine Khatun is representative of the Nakhchivan architectural tradition of the medieval era, which was heavily influenced by the works of the Azerbaijani architect Adjemi ibn Kuseyir. The Nakhchivani style differed from the Shirvani styles, prevailing in Absheron, in its use of brick as the basic construction material and the use of colored, especially turquoise enameled tiles, for decoration.
Read more about this topic: Momine Khatun Mausoleum
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“It is possible—indeed possible even according to the old conception of logic—to give in advance a description of all ‘true’ logical propositions. Hence there can never be surprises in logic.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“God damnit, why must all those journalists be such sticklers for detail? Why, they’d hold you to an accurate description of the first time you ever made love, expecting you to remember the color of the room and the shape of the windows.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“I was here first introduced to Joe.... He was a good-looking Indian, twenty-four years old, apparently of unmixed blood, short and stout, with a broad face and reddish complexion, and eyes, methinks, narrower and more turned up at the outer corners than ours, answering to the description of his race. Besides his underclothing, he wore a red flannel shirt, woolen pants, and a black Kossuth hat, the ordinary dress of the lumberman, and, to a considerable extent, of the Penobscot Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)