Background Information

Sitting in Nizamuddin Delhi, India, Humayun's Garden Tomb was built at the begining of the reign of Mughal emperor Akbar to inter his father, Nasir al-Din Muhammad Humayun.1 Walking distance from the dargah of Chisti saint Nizam al-Din Awliya, Humayun's Garden Tomb shares the northeastern corner of its enclosure wall with the saint's chilla-khana. The construction for the tomb, garden, gates, and hammam began in 1562 and was completed in 1571.2 Emperor Humayun's Garden Tomb is credited to two architects, Mirak Mirza Ghiyas and his son Sayyid Muhammad Ghiyas.3

Dimensions:

Garden: West/East x North/South 342m x 349m4
Platform 111m x 111m x 1.2m5
Plinth 99m x 99m x 6.5m 6
Tomb Footprint 50m x 50m7
Pishtaq 12.69m Wide x 18m Tall8
Iwan 10m Wide x 13.5m Tall9
Iwan's Pointed Arch 10m Springing Point, 3.5m Rise10
Dome 22.2m Tall11
Finial 18m Tall12
Total Height 42.5m 13

1. Glenn Lowry, "Humayun's Tomb: Form, Function, and Meaning in Early Mughal Architecture," Muqarnas 4, (1987): 133.

2. ibid, 133.

3. Laura E. Parodi, "The Posthumous Portrait of Ḥaḍrat Jannat ʿAshiyānī: Dynastic, Saintly, and Literary Imagery in the Tomb of Humayun," Islamic Art 6, (2009): 130.

4. R. Balasubramaniam, "On the Modular Design of Mughal Riverfront Funerary Gardens," Nexus Network Journal 12, (2010): 276.

5. Rahimov Laziz Abduazizovich, "The Mausoleum of Humayun," International Journal of Scientific and Technology Research 5, no. 7 (2016): 211.

6. Lowry, "Humayun's Tomb: Form," 133.

7. Balasubramaniam, "On Modular Design Mughal Riverfront," 276.

8. Abduazizovich, "Mausoleum of Humayun," 211.

9. ibid, 212.

10. ibid, 213.

11. ibid, 213.

12. "Finial," Nizamuddin Urban Renewal Initiative, accessed May 1, 2020. http://www.nizamuddinrenewal.org/conservation/humayun-tomb/data/finial.php.

13. Lowry, "Humayun's Tomb: Form," 133.


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