Main Info
The mausoleum of Ghulam Shah Kalhora, the oldest and the most refined and impressive amongst the Kalhora monuments is located to the north of the National Highway near City Gate Hotel, Hyderabad. The tomb of Mian Ghulam Shah Kalhora, the founder of Hyderabad, represents the typical architecture of Kalhora’s period. The tomb was constructed in 1772 A.D. by his son Sarfraz Khan Kalhora.
The mausoleum and the courtyard have been surrounded with high mud walls and bastions which make the place look like a military post rather than the last resting place of a ruler. From the outside, it is a formidable fort, now rain-streaked because of the absence of burnt brick encasement on the interior and on the exterior. Each side of the fortification wall, except the northern one, has a bastion and an entrance. The fortification wall was built with burnt bricks laid in mud mortar with its core filled with mud bricks.
The mausoleum is built on a raised rectangular platform; the low parapet wall which runs right around the raised platform on which the building stands is constructed of thin panels of perforated stones. The panels are divided by means of small pillars placed at regular intervals.
The mausoleum itself is a great massive square building. The entrance, on the eastern side, is in the form of a recessed, tall, pointed archway. The lofty exterior is divided into three horizontal panels above the dado level. Each panel was once covered with glazed colored tiles having two floral patterns alternating with each other. Many of these tiles are now badly damaged, and those of the façade are totally disappeared and have been plastered over by way of repairs. The walls of the chamber were once totally covered with elaborate frescoes with bands of Persian scripts, but not much of the original decoration left. Verses from the Holy Quran have also faded and in some cases have been painted over, and are therefore in an almost unintelligible state. On the southern side there are superbly inscribed coup-lets set in relief, in marble medallions. The last verse of these couplets gives us the year of the death of Ghulam Shah Kalhoro.
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