The Taj Mahal

Akbar's grandson Shah Jahan, after the death of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, begins a mausoleum at Agra on the bank of the Yamuna. The work runs some twenty years: white marble is carried hundreds of kilometres, the walls are inlaid with gemstones in patterns of flowers, and the Quranic inscriptions are so proportioned that the letters look the same size from far and near. The building is set not at the centre of the garden but at the water's edge, to be mirrored in the river. Later Shah Jahan's son Aurangzeb will depose his father and keep him under guard in the fort of Agra — from which the dome of the mausoleum can be seen.