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Henry Cousens 
Tatta, Karachi District, Sindh. Interior of Jam Nizam-Ud-Din's Tomb 
1896 
  
Photographic print 
28.6 x 23.9 cm 
  
British Library 
Courtesy of the British Library, Image number: 1486, Shelfmark: Photo 1009/4(1486) 
  
 
LL/37196 
  
Photograph of the interior of Jam Nizam-Ud-Din's Tomb at Thatta in the Karachi District of Sindh., taken by Henry Cousens in 1896. This view of the interior shows the graves. Cousens wrote in The Antiquities of Sind, "It is a great square unfinished building enclosing a square sepulchral chamber, which has never been roofed in, the work having been apparently stopped when the four walls had almost reached the springing line of the dome....It is built almost entirely of Hindu elements, that is, such as generally found in Hindu temples...In this case the building is a tomb and mosque combined. It was always the custom...to include a mosque in the general design [of mausolea]...But in these Thathah tombs, instead of having the mosque in a separate building, a prayer niche or mihrab, worked into the west wall within, served its purpose...Plate XXXIV [this image] shows how it was intended to roof in the tomb. The corners of the square chamber are cut off by squinches which span the corners to carry the octagon above, which, again, is reduced in the same manner to a sixteen-sided figure which would carry the circular springing courses of the dome. It is a very simple arrangement. The squinches are splayed arches radiating from points in the corner of the square. By corbelling forward the masonry of the octagon and the sixteen sided figure above, the diameter of the dome is considerably reduced." 
 

 
  
 
  
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