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Documentation of Indo-Islamic architecture built along a 16th-century highway

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2019

Vandana Sinha
Vandana Sinha*
Affiliation:
Director, Center for Art and Archaeology, American Institute of Indian Studies, Gurugram, Haryana, India Email: vandana.sinha@aiis.org.in
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Abstract

An internationally recognized presence in the documentation of Indic and South East Asian art and architecture, the Center for Art and Archaeology (CA&A) of the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) conducted a documentation project in 2007 that explored an interesting range of built heritage arrayed along a 16th-century highway, the Agra – Lahore route, laid by the Mughal rulers of India. The stretch of the Agra – Lahore highway this project traced, crossed two north Indian states of independent India – Haryana and Punjab, and documented built heritage that survives on that road. The documentation revealed edifices unique to a travel environment including Caravansarai (rest house), Kos-Minars (distance markers), bridges, stepped-wells and Bagh (pleasure gardens) built under the patronage of Mughal elites. The project emphasized the importance of identifying the strands of cultural heritage and the processes of documenting them. A major aim of such documentation was to aid preservation of the monuments themselves by providing critical information for future decisions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Art Libraries Journal , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , July 2019 , pp. 98 - 107
Copyright
© ARLIS, 2019 

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References

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