Shapes and Voices of Marble : Funerary Monuments from Ghazni (16th – 18th c.)

A large number of late funerary monuments has been documented in the extensive cemeteries and burial areas spread around Ghazni (Afghanistan) and significantly enlarged after the 13th century Mongol invasion. Because of the war circumstances the country went through almost all of these monuments have disappeared. Therefore, this rich documentation became all the more valuable today.
The outcome of a local production with apparently no close parallel in the region, these tombs – dating from the 15th century onwards – are strongly related to the Ghaznavid tomb prototype (10th - 11th c.) the first and finest specimen being that of Sebuktigin (d. 387/997), founder of the dynasty.
Various and complex in shapes and decorations, these marble artifacts attest to a refined level of manufacture still extant in late times, displaying an outstanding local artistic longevity and originality. Nevertheless, as a preliminary comparison with contemporary funerary monuments from other Islamic regions proves, some interesting similarities can be traced with tombs coming from distant lands, thus showing some sort of ‘unity within diversity’ across the Islamic architectural funerary context which is worthy of further studies.
Through a discussion on the morphology and epigraphic features of these tombs – often displaying an interesting combined use of both Arabic and Persian – this paper presents this precious funerary documentation as evidence of the new phase of life the city witnessed after the Mongol invasion.
Although it had lost its political and cultural hegemony, Ghazni still retained its former glory and gained a new renaissance as a religious and pilgrimage centre: a trend generally common in most of the other Islamic Iranian and Central Asian regions in late medieval times.
A preliminary analysis of the epitaphs suggests that the deceased were mostly men bearing the titles of Imām, Darwish and Shayk. They were often religious and pious personalities: a further evidence of the wide diffusion of mystic brotherhoods in the region. Therefore, Ghazni late funerary monuments with their peculiar morphology and epigraphic content represent not only a fine artistic expression but also a useful instrument for the inquiry into the city’s social and historical background, during a period not well documented by the historical sources.