500px provided description: Shah-i-Zinda (meaning "The Living King") is a necropolis in the north-eastern part of Samarkand, Uzbekistan. This place contains some of the richest tilework in the Muslim world.

The name, which means ?Tomb of the Living King?, refers to its original, innermost and holiest shrine ? a complex of cool, quiet rooms around what is probably the grave of Qusam ibn-Abbas, a cousin of the Prophet Mohammed who is said to have brought Islam to this area in the 7th century. The Shah-i-Zinda Ensemble includes mausoleums and other ritual buildings of 9-14th and 19th centuries.

All architecture of Shah-i-Zinda is distinctive for its blue-green colour. ?Because blue was the color of mourning in Central Asia, it was the logical choice for most funerary architecture. But the preference reflected a range of other, more favorable symbolic associations. As well as being the color that wards off the evil eye (a function that it still performs on the doors of many Central Asian houses), blue is the color of the sky and of water, the latter being a precariously rare resource in Central Asia and the Middle East. Abetting this clearly overdetermined fondness for the color is the fact that the region abounds in such minerals as lapis and turquoise.? [#architecture ,#turquoise ,#necropolis ,#avenue ,#tiles ,#mausoleum ,#majolica ,#Shah-i-Zinda ,#Samarkand ,#Uzbekistan ,#Asia ,#UNESCO ,#National Geographic ,#Central Asia ,#UNESCO heritage site ,#Silk Road ,#lapis lazuli ,#Lonely Planet ,#Silk Route ,#Angshuman ,#Nategeo_Traveller ,#National Geographic Traveller]