The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum in Agra built by Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal between 1632 and 1653: a white marble dome above the Yamuna river, a formal garden crossed by channels, and calligraphy and white marble inlay 1 2 3 4 5. John Brookes writes that she died giving birth to her fourteenth child three years after Shah Jahan's accession, and that building began in 1632 and ended in 1654 6 2 3. He sees it as concluding earlier strands in Mughal building: slender minarets anticipated at the gateway of Akbar's tomb, white marble inlay used earlier at the tomb of I'timad al-Dawla, and the tomb form first seen at Humayun's tomb 2 3.
The tomb sits on a plinth between two sandstone and marble pavilions, a mosque and a reception hall, above the level of the quartered garden 3. It stands not at the garden's centre but at its edge above the Yamuna, and Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi notes that here the focus was shifted from the centre to the river front 3 7. Rezavi adds that the bulbous double dome, first seen at Humayun's tomb, was perfected here, and that its facades are the most representative Mughal example of calligraphic decoration 4 5. He ranks it with Humayun's tomb as the most famous Mughal tombs built on the Timurid plan, and finds the blend of Iranian and indigenous elements at its best in it 8 9. Shah Jahan was buried beside his wife here in 1666, and the tomb was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 1983 10 1.
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