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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
LJULY, 1915
square on plan, is converted into an octagon by squinches thrown across the angles. On this stands an octagonal drum, with narrow windows in each face, a new feature of which this is the earliest example known to me with one exception, Imâmzadeh Yahia, also at Verâmin, built in the 12th century according to Dr. Sarre.27 The eight sides of the drum are converted into sixteen by a series of beautifully finished squinches, and on these rests the dome itself. (Plate II, F). On examining the plate, it will be seen that the dome instead of being either set back or carried across the sixteen angles, has the internal rim of its spherical surface distorted almost imperceptibly to fit its support, the distortion soon merging in the true hemisphere as the dome rises. This separation of parts-pendentives, drum, dome-recalls the similar separation of structural elements to be found in Byzantine architecture of the 10th century,28 in which, however, squinches are replaced by spherical triangles.
The interior of this dome is decorated with tile mosaic, with a magnificent rosette in the centre; beyond this may be seen a network of interlacing curves, in the interstices of which are square plaques containing ornamental devices in highly conventionalized Kufic, & somewhat uncommon decorative feature. It is, however, found in the Blue Mosque at Tabriz (1437-68),29 and in a few mosques at Cairo, examples of which have been published by Innes and Rogers. I give here (Fig. 15) an example from the mosque of Hasan (1356) published by the former, 30 of which he gives the following reading in French style : "La Ilah illa Allah, Mohamed rasoul Allah" : There is no god but God, Mohamed is the Apostle of God.
Fig. 15. The mausoleum at Sultanich and the highly articulated and well finished interior of this dome, together with Prof. Sarre's fine plates of the main entrance and mihrab, enable one to realize the splendour of Persian architecture in the 13th and 14th centuries.
We now approach the Timûrî age when a great change is witnessed in the style of dome used in Persia. Up to this point all the domes met with are simple structures and we have no example of the bulbous double dome. The only apparent exception to this is the double dome of the shrine of Imam Rizâ, at Meshed, sometimes stated to have been built by Suri, governor of Nisha pûr in 103731 ; but this is incorrect, as this early dome was destroyed by an earthquake in the 17th century and rebuilt and gilded by Shâh Sulaiman in 1672, according to Chardin, who was an eye-witness of the work, 12
17 Sarre (F.), Denkmäler persischer Baukunst, fig. 65.
» Choisy (A), L'Art de batir chez lo Byzantines, p. 96, 8. Bardias at Saloniks being one of the earliest dated examples
» Texier (C.), Description de l'Arménie la Perse, eto, pl. 47, 49.
30 Innes (Walter), Inscriptions arabes en caracteres carro: Bulletin de l'Institutoyplim, III série, No. 1, pp. 61-7.
31 Yate, (C.E.) Khurasan and Sistan, p. 316. 32 Chardin, ed. Langlés, Vol. III. p. 228.
