Magok-i-Attari Mosque, Bukhara, Uzbekistan It is an historical mosque in Bukhara, part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Bukhara
Magok-i-Attari Mosque is a historical mosque in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. It is forming a part of historical religious complex of Lyab-i Hauz and it is a part of UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Bukhara. As can be guessed by the fact the old entrance is located meters below the actual ground level, the mosque is more than 1000 years old. It is in fact notable to be one of the oldest surviving mosques in Central Asia and one of the few surviving buildings in Bukhara from the time before the Mongolian invasion when it was literally buried in the sand to save it from the fury of Genghis Khan. This same place has an even longer “religious history”, archaeologists have found underneath the remain of Buddhist monastery, that later became a Zoroastrian temple in the pre-Islamic era and on which remains the mosque has been built 9th to 10th-century. Close by, besides the nearby bazar, there was formerly a pagan Temple of the Moon (Mokh). And last but not the least, it is believed that before the construction of the first synagogue in Bukhara, Jews prayed here in the same room with the Muslims. In the 12th-century, when Kara-Khanids reigned in Bukhara, the mosque was substantially rebuilt and re-dressed. It also received a new main facade in the south. In the middle of the 15th-century, it was restored and a new portal with iwan was built in the eastern ground. At the beginning of the 1930s the mosque was restored again for the last time. The southern façade is most richly equipped and was the former main entrance. Ornaments are made mainly by the arrangement of cut and carved bricks and by terracotta tiles with floral motifs. The pointed arch of the iwan is resting on two quarter columns set in walls, decorated with wattle. On each side of the iwan, three rectangular frames with decorative patterns are arranged one above the other.
Size: 6000px × 4000px
Location: bukhara, uzbekistan
Photo credit: © Mattia Marenco / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: arabian, archeology, asia, bukhara, carved, desert, east, magic, middle, mosque, nights, orient, oriental, road, romantic, ruin, silk, tiles, travel, unesco, uzbekistan, zoroastrian
