Tile panel, earthenware, Bukhara, 1358

These tiles formed a section of an ornamental frieze set over the doorway to a magnificent tomb. The tiles were deeply carved with inscriptions and other ornament and covered with coloured glazes before the final firing.

The tomb was that of Buyanquli Khan, a Muslim descendant of the great Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan. For a time he was the puppet ruler of parts of Central Asia. He was assassinated by a local warlord in 1358 when he tried to assert his own authority. Buyanquli's tomb was built in a cemetery on the outskirts of Bukhara in Uzbekistan. The entire building was covered in tiles, inside and out. Panel of tiles of rectangular form, deeply carved with interlacing star-shaped motifs around a central split palmettes pattern, decorated with with turquoise, white, lavender-blue and manganese-purple glazes, set within turquoise borders and mounted within modern wooden frames.

From the tomb of Bairam Khuli Khan at Fathabad, near Bokhara. Bought from the Myers Collection.