Click here to buy tickets for this exhibition, or telephone +44 (0)870 8488484.
Click here to buy the Turks catalogue from the Royal Academy’s main website.
This earliest known Timurid-Turkmen architectural scroll comprises 114 framed drawings on sheets of paper pasted together to form a very long roll (tumar). The graphic modes employed on the scroll use complex systems of coding to show symmetrical properties of designs and the different planes of three-dimensional projections, such as muqarnas (stalactite vaults). Many of the design units, in either square or rectangular frames, show only one quadrant of a design that would be replicated along one or two axes. Comparisons between the elements of the scroll and extant architecture suggests a production date in the late 1400s. The scroll reflects the application of applied geometry in the Islamic tradition and the growing importance of paper for architectural design processes. Scrolls such as this also played a role in spreading courtly architectural idioms — in elements of construction and decoration — across the regions of Iran and Central Asia and help to explain the level of unity found in Timurid and Turkmen monuments.
David J. Roxburgh
• Click here to buy tickets for this exhibition, or telephone +44 (0)870 8488484.
• Click here to buy the Turks catalogue from the Royal Academy’s main website.
