The restored Humayun’s Tomb will be inaugurated by prime minister Manmohan Singh and the Aga Khan on Wednesday. The project, which began in 1997 and will continue at least until 2017, is the largest and most ambitious heritage conservation project undertaken in India, and the only one by a non-government body, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC).
The Archaeological Survey of India, Dorabji Tata Trust, World Monuments Fund, Ford Foundation and other organisations are partners in the project.
Much of the restoration work on the 16th century mausoleum, a world heritage site, involved undoing the damage done by earlier restoration attempts, says Ratish Nanda, project director.
For instance, the roof had been covered in concrete which allowed water to percolate into the building. Around a million kilogramme of this was removed painstakingly using hand tools to minimise the vibrations. The gateways and pavilions had been covered in cement plaster which was removed and replaced with a thin coat of lime plaster. In 1947, the gardens of Humayun’s Tomb became a camp for refugees, who burnt the doors of the mini tombs on the ground level. These were replaced using photographs of the time to build similar doors, says Nanda.
Remarkably, all attempts at adding or ‘restoring’ the Humayun’s Tomb to an ‘original’ pristine condition have been kept to a judicious minimum by the conservation experts. This is a rarity in India where the panacea for broken stones or walls in historical monuments is to cover them with layers of plaster — not caring that they look ugly and could damage the structure.
Where AKTC’s conservation experts had to rebuild, such as the 42 arched recesses of the garden wall that had collapsed, they used only those materials and techniques that the Mughals used.
AKDN went to lengths to source it. For instance, it took four years and a master tile-maker from Uzbekistan to train youth from the nearby Nizamuddin Basti to make the blue-glazed tiles that now cover the canopies.
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