A spandrel is "the triangular space between the curve of an arch and the space enclosing it."1 The spandrels above the only entrance to Humayun's Tomb, the two large alcove arches on each of the tomb's facades, and the facades' second story arches are decorated with six-pointed stellate symbols. Some spandrel pairs are joined with a delicate white stylized floral symbol at the apex of the arch. This can be seen on the spandrels above the entrances and blind openings of the hammam and over many of the passageway arches inside Humayun's Tomb. The cenotaph level spandrels inside the iwans are decorated with Stylized Lotus Medallions. Stellate symbols that are inscribed by Stylized Lotus Medallions can be found on the pishtaqs' spandrels, on the West Gate's main arches' spandrels, on the South Gate's main arches' spandrels, and the Barber's Tomb's alcove spandrels.
1. Catherine B. Asher, Architecture of Mughal India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), xxviii.
Asher, Catherine B. "The Mausoleum of Sher Shāh Sūrī." Artibus Asiae 39, no. 3-4 (1977): 273-98.
Ching, Francis D.K. Architecture: Form, Space And Order. 3rd ed. Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, 2007.
