ISMAIL SAMANI MAUSOLEUM

Nicknamed "the pearl of the East", the mausoleum of the Samanides has long been forgotten at the bottom of a cemetery. When the archaeologist Shishkin discovered it in 1930, during the development of Samani Park, it was drowned among other graves, buried under several meters of earth, which saved it from the Mongolian tornado and a thousand years of history. Today the necropolis has disappeared, a park has been laid out around the mausoleum, and a basin has been dug to restore it to its original configuration. The Uzbeks venerate the founder of one of the most prestigious dynasties of Central Asia. The Pearl of the Orient is a witness to the golden age of Bukhara. Built at the beginning of the 10th century by Ismail Samani for his father Akhmad, this dynastic tomb is the second oldest mausoleum in the Muslim world. Its precise dating would make it possible to know whether the tradition of mausoleum building for Muslim dynasties originated here, or in Iraq, with the tomb of the Caliph Al Mountasir. Its architecture retains a Sogdian influence, but incorporates construction techniques that were revolutionary for the time. The mausoleum is conceived as a symbolic representation of the universe: a cube of just under 11 m on each side with four identical façades, symbolizing the earth and stability, surmounted by a semi-spherical dome which is the Sogdian representation of the universe. Above the door of the mausoleum is represented a circle in a square: the Zoroastrian symbol of eternity. Decorative techniques made of bricks assembled in groups of four or five in different directions were also an innovation that would mark the following centuries. The mausoleum has 18 different combinations, including three-dimensional. Its proportions and decorative motifs are based on the principle of the dynamic square, an architectural discovery that gives the ensemble a power and harmony rarely equalled. Depending on the position of the sun, the brickwork gives the monument a different light and appearance, moving, despite its sober form. The builders used baked brick, cemented with egg yolk and camel milk. This unusual material and its skillful assembly allowed the monument to cross more than a millennium without suffering from earthquakes. Pilgrims walk three times around the mausoleum reciting prayers. Some tourists too, because they say that if you make a wish to come back to Bukhara... the wish comes true.