Q&A YOU ASK, WE ANSWER
Was there meant to be a black Taj Mahal?
SHORT ANSWER Probably not: isn’t one wonder of the architectural world enough?
LONG ANSWER On the bank of the Yamuna River at Agra, India, stands one of the world’s most famous specimens of architecture: the Taj Mahal. The Mughal emperor Shah Jahan commissioned the stunning mausoleum complex for his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their 14th child in 1631. Some 22 years and a fortune later, his white-marble masterpiece had been completed.
Shah Jahan was not done, according to legend, as he intended to build a second mausoleum for himself on the other side of the river, connected by a bridge, and identical except that his would be made of black marble. Unfortunately for Shah Jahan, he was deposed in 1658 by his son and the black Taj Mahal was never built. That is, if he actually planned it at all.
There is no evidence of such a construction project – save for slabs of darkened marble, which turned out to be discoloured rather than black anyway – and building one Taj Mahal had emptied the empire’s coffers, let alone a second. Add to that the fact that the first mention of the black Taj Mahal comes from a fanciful French traveller named Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, who visited Agra during Shah Jahan’s reign, and this seems to be another historical myth.
