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military campaigns, but also from more personal aspects of
his life. He sought to bolster his political legitimacy by
attaching himself to the family of Chinggis Khan in any
possible way. He ruled in the name of a titular Mongol
descendant whose importance was symbolic rather than
practical. He sought out and married female members of the
Chinggisid family, which permitted him to use the coveted
3
title of Güregen or ‘son-in-law’.
Timur also appears to have viewed the Ming rulers as
obstacles to his eventual goal of reconstructing the broad
expanse of the Mongol state. A Spanish envoy to Timur’s
court, Ruy González de Clavijo, who witnessed several
royal audiences during his visit to Samarqand in the
autumn of 1404, describes the ways in which Timur showed
his contempt for Chinese officials sent from the Ming court
to collect tribute from him. He not only sought to humiliate
them by relegating them to an inferior position among his
guests, but also addressed them in insulting language. In
addition, they were detained for some time before being
allowed to return to China, and without the payment from
him that they had been sent to collect. 4
Although none of the other Timurids attempted to assert
control over the territory of the Ming state, other facets of
Timur’s legacy continued to shape their artistic patronage.
Following a policy previously used by the Mongols,
whenever he conquered an area, Timur treated skilled
craftsmen as booty to be used as he saw fit. If their skills
were deemed useful, those individuals could be forced to Plate 26.1 Page showing Khusraw at Shirin’s castle in Nizami,
Khusraw wa Shirin, dated 1406–10, Tabriz. Ink, opaque watercolour
leave their homes and move to his capital, Samarqand, in and gold on paper, height 25.7cm, width 18.4cm. Freer Gallery of
order to execute projects under his command. Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., Purchase F1931.36
5
The artistic consequences of these forced relocations
instigated by Timur are most easily documented in Samarqand after Timur’s campaigns in western Iran in the
architecture. For example, in the cemetery zone of 1380s and 1390s. These new trends are represented by a
Samarqand known as the Shah-i Zindeh, tombs belonging tomb erected by another of Timur’s sisters, Shirin Bika Aqa,
to female members of Timur’s immediate family can be for either her own use or that of her family. The tomb’s
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divided between those that are decorated with the portal is surmounted by a vertically ribbed vault, while its
techniques and designs already established in Samarqand exterior surfaces are covered with tiles executed in the
by the last quarter of the 14th century, prior to Timur’s laborious technique of cut-tile mosaic that had been
seizure of the city, and those which display decorative developed in western Iran. Comparable vaults and
systems introduced to the region in the early 15th century by ornamentation are still preserved in late 14th or early
builders and tile-makers who had been transferred to 15th-century structures erected in Tabriz, Isfahan and
Samarqand from the Iranian cities of Shiraz, Yazd and Shiraz. The consequences of Timur’s policy of moving
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Isfahan. craftsmen from one region to another is more easily
A mausoleum in the Shah-i Zindeh, known as the tomb of documented in architecture than in the production of
Shad-i Mulk Agha and erected through the patronage of portable works of art, but some objects may reflect the
Timur’s elder sister, Turkan Agha (d. 1386), to serve both as application of a similar practice of transferring skilled
her own tomb and that of her daughter who had died in 1371, craftsmen from one region to another in order to execute a
continues the architectural and decorative traditions that royal commission. The fact that Timur’s grandson Ulugh
had been established in Samarqand by the 1360s and which Beg (1394–1449) also inherited at least some of his
are evident in some of that complex’s earliest documented grandfather’s transplanted craftsmen is indicated by the fact
structures such as the tombs from the 1340s and 1350s. In that after his accession to the throne in 1411, he issued a
6
addition to an elaborate programme of geometric ornament, decree permitting transplanted Syrian ceramic specialists to
the tiles of Shad-i Mulk Agha employ stylised lotus blossoms return to their homes. Ulugh Beg’s decision to release
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shown in profile. These floral designs indicate that at least Timur’s conscripted workers, however, does not exclude the
one East Asian decorative feature had already been possibility that he acquired other specialised artisans.
integrated into the artistic repertoire of Samarqand tile Although Ulugh Beg did not emulate his grandfather’s
makers by the last quarter of the 14th century. passion for territorial expansion, the fact that his dominion
This local Samarqand approach to architectural included Timur’s capital, Samarqand, may well have
decoration contrasted with the new techniques and designs provided him with the opportunity to embrace other aspects
that were introduced by craftsmen forcibly transferred to of the latter’s policies. It is known, for example that he too

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