Humayun's Tomb:
The first Mughal Emperor,
Babur, was succeeded by his son, Humayun, who ruled in India for a decade
but was expelled. Eventually he took refuge with the Safavid shah of Persia,
who helped him regain Delhi in 1555, the year before his death. Humayun's
Persian wife, Hamida Begum, supervised the construction from 1562-1572
of her husband's tomb in Delhi. The architect, Mirak Mirza Ghiyuath, was
Persian and had previously designed buildings in many neighboring regions.
It served as a refuge for the last emperor Bahadur Shah II before
he was captured by the British in 1857.
The tomb established some of the important norms for later
Moghul mausolea. It is set in a geometrically arranged quartered garden
(charbagh) criscrossed by numerous water channels and probably representing
symbolically a paradise setting. Such typical Persian gardens had been
introduced into India by Babur; later they would be found in the Red Fort in
Delhi and at the Taj Mahal in Agra. Indian features of the architecture are the
small kiosks (chhatris) on the roof. The building is also noteworthy for its
inlaid tile work, carving embodying both Indian and Persian decorative elements,
and its carved stone screens.