Sher-Dor Madrasah

The madrasah took seventeen years to build, from 1619 to 1636, facing Ulugh Beg's building and repeating its proportions; the work was directed by the architect Abdujabbar. The patron was Yalangtush Bahadur — not a khan but an emir under the Ashtarkhanid rulers of Bukhara, who governed Samarkand for three decades; the site was cleared of Ulugh Beg's decayed khanaka, which had stood here for two hundred years. The name means “the one with lions”: the tympanum of the portal carries a mosaic of big cats chasing does and a sun with a human face — a rare depiction of living creatures in Muslim architecture. That tympanum also appeared on the Uzbek 200-sum banknote issued in 1997. Two ribbed turquoise domes rise on either side of the courtyard, and squat minarets stand at the corners of the facade. The builders of the 17th century no longer matched the precision of the older masters: the masonry settled, the portal and the towers leaned noticeably out of true, and they were straightened only during the Soviet restorations. The courtyard is ringed by two tiers of cells, now occupied by craftsmen's shops.

On the map