Salmiya

Quasi-periodicity in 15 th century Islamic Art and whether it actually has been developed as a concept is still a matter of a somewhat controversial debate. There are three sites in the city of Esfahan which have been studied in this regard in considerable detail, two rather small patterns on a spandrel and a portal on the Darb-i Imam shrine in the Dardasht quarter of the old city (1453) and a huge pattern on the western iwan of the Great Mosque. Several authors have, in the meantime, tried to overlie Penrose patterns of kites and darts or thick and thin rhombuses in order to prove that medieval artisans were able to apply what had been described by Roger Penrose only five centuries later. See, for example, Lu and Steinhardt (2007), their response to some additional work by Makovicky (2007), or Cromwell (2008) here , here , and here . However, while a certain desire for subdivision and self-similarity can easily be traced on the respective buildings, it is not perfect, in particular...

For some time, the Gonbad-e Qabud in Maraghah in Western Iran has attracted considerable attention. Maraghah is a small city east of Daryacheh Urumiyeh in the East Azerbaijan province of Iran. It lies about 100 km south of Tabriz close to the southeastern shores of the huge super-salty lake at the southern foot hills of 3700 meters high Kuh-e Sahand. On the other side of the mountain lies the picturesque village of Kandovan, Iran’s Cappadocia [1]. Maraghah is quite famous for its five tomb towers (four are preserved) from the Post-Seljuq and Mongolian periods (12th till early 14th centuries). Gonbad-e Qabud, the Blue Tower (1196/97), has the most elaborated and complex brick pattern which has fascinated and confused generations of explorers and tourists. It represents an octagonal tower with eight panels each crowned by a niche with a pointed, gothic, arch. The brickwork results in highly ornamental net of unglazed ribs interlaced with turquoise blue ribbons unrelated to the pentagonal...