Aisha Bibi Mausoleum
Karakhanid tomb west of Taraz, faced with carved terracotta in some sixty different patterns.
The mausoleum stands in the village of Aisha Bibi, roughly eighteen kilometres west of Taraz on the old Silk Road, and is dated to the eleventh or twelfth century, in the Karakhanid period. It is a small square chamber with engaged corner columns whose form recalls the wooden posts of pre-Islamic Sogdian building. Every outer surface is faced with carved terracotta tiles, about sixty distinct designs in all, combining floral motifs, geometric lattices and stylised Kufic lettering. Little of the original dome survives.
Local tradition holds that a Karakhanid ruler raised the tomb for his betrothed, who died of a snake bite while travelling to meet him; her nurse Babaji Khatun is said to lie in the smaller domed mausoleum a short distance away. The building was first studied scientifically in 1893, given a protective glass shell in the Soviet period, and restored in 2002 when the surrounding park was laid out. Women from the Taraz oasis still come to pray here, and newly married couples visit as part of local custom.
Highlights
- Around sixty different carved terracotta patterns on the facades
- Engaged corner columns echoing Sogdian timber forms
- Linked by legend to the nearby Babaji Khatun mausoleum
- Restored in 2002 with a park laid out around it
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