Humayun's tomb is one of many 16th century tombs dotted around New Delhi.
This red-sandstone constructed tomb lies in East Delhi near the Yamuna river which flows roughly North/South through the massive city. It was designed by a persian architect for Humayun's wife who commissioned it in the latter half of the 16th century and houses several Mughals in addition to Humayun. This tomb was the first of its kind as previous Mughal mausolea in India had been far more modest affairs, and it set a trent which culminated in the magnificent Taj Mahal.
One of the things I learnt in my trip to India in 2015 was the relation between the Mongols and the Mughals. There are many links between the two -- not least the fact 'Mughal' appears to be a corruption of 'Mongol' -- but a lot happened over the 300 years between Genghis Khan's death and the founding of the Moghul dynasty in Northern India and Pakistan. For one, the ancestry of the founding Mughals don't trace from Genghis himself, but via a Turco-Persian emperor Timur (or Tamerlane) who ruled large swathes of Persia and Central Asia in the 14th century who styled his empire after that of Genghis Khan.
Coming full circle, the link between Humayun's tomb and the self-styled Mongols was that the tomb was designed after the Timur's tomb in Samarkand in Eastern Uzbekistan.
New Delhi, India, 2015
Sony a7R Mark II with Zeiss FE 16-35mm f/4
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