- Aug, 24 2008 11:08am
Nice balance in this photo! You manage to include three major fetures without a cluttered feel!
- Aug, 26 2008 01:08am
I like the way the light reflects from the buildings. Gives you an idea of the material they are built with. Do you know the story behind the tiger and the head in his stomach?
- Aug, 26 2008 12:08pm
The animal and face on Islamic religious structure? Well, to my best knowledge (I wait to be corrected...) Quran absolutely forbids depicting people or animals. This is why elaborate floral motifs have been developed to decorate mosques, religious schools, mausolea... I was baffled to see this tiger and the face! I have not yet found what happened. I saw similarly strange decoration on a facade of a religious school in Bukhara.
- Aug, 27 2008 12:08pm
yes Kris, you are right! Islam strictly forbit the human or animal representation in mosques or even mederse (coranic universities)
the legend says that the architect (Yalangtuch) of the Chi Dor Medersa (chir dor (building on the pix) , in turkic means "wearing lions" ) has been excecuted for this blasphem..btw, other similar motifs can be seen in Bukhara and Samarkand (Nadir Diwanbedi, for ex.).
The lions (looking like tigers, indeed) jumping over white deers are carrying , on their back, sun with human faces...the experts are giving 2 possible explanations:
- the lion-tiger is maybe Yalangtuch himself "devouring" his competitors under the sun (meaning his glory)
- the "animal-sun" might also be interpreted as the resistance of the zoroastrian symbolic sun to Islam.
for info, the facade of a medersa, above the entrance gate is known as "pichtak".
Hope this helps! :-)
JP
- Aug, 27 2008 12:08pm
oh, another info on this wonderful 5* pix, for those interested
the meaning of the kufic writings surrounding the lion is:
"the acrobat of thought climbing on the rope of imagination, will never reach the forbidden summits of the minarets"
I leave it to your meditation!
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7 votes
