Fit to be King! Iconographies of Kingship and Political Identities in Early Sixteenth-Century Sindh

What is it about?

This paper explores how political incidents, circumstances and conflicts sometimes play a significant role in the architectural formulation of contemporary grand-scale projects. Through meticulous examination of two royal funerary structures, built in Maklī necropolis during the Samma dynastic period (1351-1522) of Sindh – the tomb enclosure of the Samma military commander Mubārak Khān (d. 1520) and the richly ornamented mausoleum of the Samma Sulṭān Niẓām al-Dīn (r. 1461-1508) – this hypothesis is tested. It is shown that in the choice of materials, forms, as well as the rich decorative vocabulary of these two mausolea, implicit subtexts regarding contemporary political identities and ideologies are interlaced into the epigraphic and visual motifs.

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