Table of Contents

A true love story was the reason of building Taj Maha, were the emperor Shah Jahan commanded to build this great edifice for his third wife Mumtaz Mahal, who’s died while she was giving the birth of their 14th child, Gauhara Begum.

Shah Jahan Mumtaz Mahal

Taj Mahal is located in northern side of India in Agra city which part of the county of Uttar Pradesh. They started to build this wonderful architecture in the Mughal Empire’s period which was the period of greatest growth between the years of 1632 and 1653; which means that they spent around 21 years to finish this huge palace. The total cost to build it was huge at that period which was around 32 million Rupees. After the completion of Taj Mahal, problems occurred between Shah Jahan and his son Aurangzeb who forced Shah to live in the Agra Fort till his death. After that Shah Jahan son buried him near his wife Mumtaz Mahal.

Tombs of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal

The creativity in building Taj Mahal

The origin of Building Materials

To build this wonderful, huge building they used a lot of materials from India itself and from many countries of Asia. They used white marble from Makrana, and jasper from Punjab in India and they brought the jade and crystal from China and the turquoise from China. Afghanistan was also a source of important material which was the lapis lazuli. Also the sapphire and carnelian came from the Arab region. Strange thing that they used twenty eight kind of precious and semi-precious stones which put between the white marble. At that period there were no modern transpirations to transfer huge quantity of materials to build Taj Mahal, they used around 1000 elephants to transfer the materials needed to the construction location.

The Architects & Builders

The emperor Shah Jahan supervised the project of building Taj Mahal by himself, and he requested number of best architects to be part of this great palace. Architects such as; Abd ul-Karim Ma'mur Khan, Makramat Khan, and Ustad Ahmad Lahauri who was the actual designer. Taj Mahal inspired from wonderful arts, styles and architectures from different cultures like the; Mughal architecture, Islamic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and Indian architectural styles. There were many famous builders & designers involved in building Taj Mahal from different countries. To build Taj Mahal there were labor force consisting of 20,000 workers employed. Those workers were brought from each of Syria, Persia and India for constriction. And thirty seven specialists were assigned to design marble flowers.

Maintenance & Restoration of Taj Mahal

In the period of the British occupation in India in 1857, the British army and the government effect Taj Mahal were they pull out precious stones and lapis lazuli from the walls. Also India Famous of tropical rains which affected the buiding badly in 19^th centrury which also had affectes the palace.Because of this druring that period the British Lord Curzon ordered to start a project for amendment Taj Mahal that was done in 1908.

Importance of Taj Mahal to India

Taj Mahal still in India up to day and its a big proof that the government of India has taken good care of it. Taj Mahal has become a very attractive point for tourists who are from India and who are from aboard. It has been selected to be one of the New 7 Wonders Foundations in the world which is an added value to India’s economy from tourists.

References

Architect.Â , a. I. (n.d.). The Story of a Second Taj - Myths About the Taj Mahal. Live India . Com :::: FREE ::::. Retrieved April 28, 2013, from http://www.liveindia.com/tajmahal/details.html

How to write references. (n.d.). Imperial College London. Retrieved April 28, 2013, from http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/library/subjectsandsupport/referencemanagement/harvard/references

Taj Mahal. (n.d.). sscnet. Retrieved April 28, 2013, from www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/Culture/Archit/TajM.html

Taj Mahal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved April 23, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taj_Mahal

Wonders of the World - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2013, April 24). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved April 28, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonders_of_the_World#American_Society_of_Civil_Engineers

ahmed CJJ 2103

Tuesday, 21 May 2013

The Story of Taj Mahal