The Muqarnas Plate Found at Takht-i Sulayman: A New Interpretation

Abstract

In 1968 the German excavation team at Takht-i Sulay man, Iran, found a 50 cm gypsum plate amid the palace ruins. This thirteenth-century plate was spon taneously recognized to be a muqarnas design. Ulrich Harb published the details of the plate and also sug gested an interpretation of its design;1 Mohammad Yaghan has more recently published other readings.2 In this paper we propose yet a different interpretation, which is more in accordance with surviving buildings of the period and the description of muqarnas by the famous mathematician al-Kashi (ca. 1430).