Taj Mahal

Tuesday, 4th July 2006 by

The marble tomb of the Taj Mahal is supposedly the ultimate symbol of love, being built by the fifth Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan, for his second wife.

I always believed the story that he planned to build a second Taj made of black marble just across the river to the north but those pesky historians say that this is in fact a myth! I'll have to try and find something that's true...

Apparently the whole thing was designed to be perfectly symmetrical, with the deceased buried at the centre of the building. The symmetry was later spoiled though, as the emperors son decided to bury the deceased emperor alongside his wife.

There's a large gallery of ground level pics at this site, a 360 panorama here and loads of info at Wikipedia.

Thanks: Jens Kilian, Fero Gunic, Matthew, Ashutosh Rajekar, gauri, vivek iyer, Tim, Mark Ross & Simone