Bibi-Khanym Mosque

The congregational mosque of Samarkand was built on the order of Timur between 1399 and 1404, after his Indian campaign. Its dimensions were pushed to the limit of what the builders could manage, so that the main portal and dome were among the largest in the Muslim world, yet the masonry could not carry the load and the building began to fall apart while the man who ordered it was still alive. The mosque owes its present look to a restoration begun in the 1970s.

On the map