Turabek Khanum Mausoleum

From outside, the mausoleum of Turabek Khanum in Konye-Urgench is a weathered brick building fronted by a tall entrance portal. Step into the main hall and you look up into one of the finest pieces of tile mosaic in the Islamic world: the inner surface of the dome, almost entirely intact after more than six centuries, is covered with a radiating pattern of flowers and stars in many-coloured mosaic, an image of the night sky made in glazed ceramic. The outer dome, probably conical like the others in the city, collapsed long ago, but the inner one survived.

The building takes its name from Turabek Khanum, daughter of the Golden Horde khan Uzbek and wife of Kutlug-Timur, who governed Khorezm on the Horde's behalf between 1321 and 1336. Local tradition holds that she died young and that her grieving husband had Khorezm's best craftsmen raise a palace-like tomb over her grave, and that she was later venerated as a patroness of women. Scholars are less sure: the mosaic faience and other features have no parallels in Urgench around 1330 and appear elsewhere in Central Asia only under Timur, so many date the building later in the 14th century. It later became the burial place of the Sufi dynasty, which ruled Khorezm from Urgench until Timur destroyed the city in 1388. The plan is subtle: a large hall, twelve-sided outside and hexagonal inside, behind an entrance portal and vestibule, with a second chamber beyond. The dome rests on a ring of 24 alternating mosaic and window panels above a twelve-sided transition with muqarnas in the corners; the repeated twelve has been read as the months of the year or the signs of the zodiac.

Konye-Urgench, ancient Gurganj, was the capital of Khorezm and a major Silk Road city on the lower Amu Darya. It was sacked by the Mongols in 1221, revived, and was razed again by Timur; when the river shifted its course the city declined, and its inhabitants finally left in the early 18th century. Its scattered monuments, including the 60-metre Kutlug-Timur minaret and the tomb of Sultan Tekesh, were inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 2005, and builders trained in its workshops are credited with spreading the city's craft to Samarkand and beyond.

Getting there

The mausoleum stands in the northern part of the ancient city, about 2 km from the modern town of Köneürgenç in Dashoguz Province. The nearest airport in Turkmenistan is Dashoguz Airport (TAZ), about 84 km away. Nukus Airport (NCU) in Uzbekistan is closer in a straight line, about 45 km, but lies across the national border.