Taj Mahal

It took 22 years to build the Taj Mahal.

The Taj Mahal was built by the fifth of the Great Mughals Shah Jahan. The Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore once called the Taj Mahal “a teardrop on the face of humanity”. Shah Jahan’s favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, always accompanied the emperor on his military campaigns. It was on one of these campaigns that Mumtaz Mahal died at the age of 39.

Shah Jahan mourned for a long time. During that period he decided to build the Taj Mahal, which would be the world’s most magnificent memorial dedicated to love. The work started in 1631, on the right bank of the Yamuna river in Agra. 20,000 persons and more than 1,000 elephants worked until 1653 to complete the memorial.

The white marble, so typical for the Taj Mahal, came from Rajasthan, the green jade from China, the red carnelian from Baghdad, the lapis lazuli from Persia, the malachite from Russia, the chrysolite from Egypt, the jasper from the Punjab, diamonds from Central India, et. To many this memorial IS the most beautiful construction ever made by man.

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