Mausolei di Il-Arslan e Tekesh

Kunya-Urgench, on the left bank of the Amu Darya in north-western Turkmenistan, occupies the site of Gurganj, the capital of Khwarazm from the 12th century^1,2. From 1097 the province was ruled by a hereditary and largely independent line of Khwarazmshahs, descendants of Anushtigin, a Turkish slave commander who had governed it for the Seljuks⁸. Shahs such as Il-Arslan (r. 1156-1172) and his son Tekesh (r. 1172-1200) built an extensive but short-lived empire north of the Oxus and in Iran, which collapsed under the Mongol invasion^4,5,8. Genghis Khan destroyed Gurganj in 1221; it was rebuilt, but in the 16th century the capital moved to Khiva and the old city was abandoned².

Two square brick tombs in the south of the ruins bear these rulers’ names by tradition only: Archnet calls the link with Il-Arslan a popular attribution and says the Tekesh tomb’s date and patron are not established^4,5. ICOMOS dates them to about 1150 and about 1195, each with a question mark, while Archnet says most scholars place the ‘Il-Arslan’ building in the early 13th century^2,4. Archnet and IRCICA list the smaller tomb under the name of the theologian Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, who according to Britannica died near Herat in 1209; locally the larger is called Gokgumbaz, ‘blue cupola’, or Sheikh Sherip Baba^4,5,6,9. Both were restored from the 1980s and joined the World Heritage List in 2005^1,2,3.

ICOMOS describes both as square brick tombs with conical roofs, the Tekesh tomb being the larger². The ‘Il-Arslan’ tomb is a tapering brick cube under a twelve-sided drum and a twelve-sided pyramidal roof, decorated with blue glazed tiles laid vertically in diagonal squares against plain brick^3,4. Carved terracotta inscriptions frame its entrance; Archnet explains that such facings were laid out in brick on the ground, coated with clay, carved, cut into panels, fired and reassembled on the wall^2,4. Archnet notes the building’s simple form and its stress on the silhouette and colour of the roof, and sees its influence in the Tekesh tomb to the north⁴.

The Tekesh tomb measures 11.45 by 11.45 m, and the nomination file gives its 24-sided conical roof a height of 18 m³. Its corners are cut back to a partial octagon, and a drum of terracotta-inset panels alternating with triangular flanges, with muqarnas between them, carries a double dome: an inner dome under the conical shell⁵. Blue tiles laid in a herringbone pattern, some of them still in place, decorate the roof; a frieze of glazed tiles with raised calligraphy runs round its base, and muqarnas line the portal arch^2,5. IRCICA reports annex buildings found in excavations, evidence that the tomb belonged to a larger complex⁷. Archnet calls it an elaborate example of the Khwarazmian brick cube under a pyramidal roof, drawing on both the Seljuk tomb tower and the domed square mausoleum⁵.

In the ‘Il-Arslan’ tomb daylight enters through perforated stone grilles in small arched windows and in the drum above them⁴; the restoration of the 1980s repaired the interior, fitted the windows with lattice screens (panjara) and added carved doors³. In the Tekesh tomb the chamfered corners turn the square room into a partial octagon that carries the drum and an inner dome, hidden beneath the conical outer shell⁵. Its brickwork was conserved and its plaster renewed in works that began in 1983, but in 2004 the nomination file described the outer dome as badly eroded and partly collapsed³.