Bukhara · a Light

A brick tower in Bukhara has stood since 1127

The Kalyan minaret in Bukhara was finished in 1127 for the Karakhanid ruler Arslan Khan. It is baked brick, about forty six metres high, tapering, set on a deep foundation packed with reeds, and its whole surface is worked into fourteen bands, each with a different geometric pattern laid up in the brickwork itself rather than applied to it. The city was destroyed by the Mongols in 1220 and the minaret was left standing. A well known story says Genghis Khan ordered it spared after his hat fell off as he looked up, which is a good story with no early source behind it. The mosque beside it was rebuilt in the sixteenth century. The tower is the older thing on the square by four hundred years.

Bukhara, Uzbekistan · 1127 CE