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Timurid Soldiers - Page 1

Page 2 - Timurid Soldiers and Turkmen successors of the late 15th and early 16th centuries

Click to see a larger image.


Prince Bahram Slays a Dragon, 1371 Shahnama.
Haz 1511, Topkapi Sarayi Muzesi.



Zal meets Rudaba, Shahnama, 14thC.
Ms. 58 G, Princeton University Library



Giv defeats and binds Guruy Zirih, 1393 Shahnama.
Cairo, Dar al-Kutub, Ms. Ta'rikh Farisi, no. 73.



Three Metric Romances by Khwāju Kermānī, c.1396.
British Museum, Add. 18113.



Timurid Warrior On Mount Damavand,
from the 'Kushnama', Shiraz, 1397.
British Library Or. 2780, f.213v.



Mars in Conjunction with Scorpio.
Kitāb al-Bulhān, ?Erbil, Kurdistan, c.1400AD.
Bodleian Library MS. Bodl. Or. 133, f.15b.



Defeat of the Iranians at the Battle of Ladan,
early 15thC Shahnama. Chester Beatty Library



Timurid Mounted Falconer Hunting Ducks, a Muraqqa, 1420



Hunting Scene, c.1430
Timurid anthology for Prince Baysunghur. Herat, Iran.
Villa I Tatti, Florence, Italy




Bahram Gur Hunting, Khamsa by Nizami, c.1430.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York



Timurid Costume and Soldiers from Baysunghur's
copy of the Shahnama by Ferdowsi, 1430



Flight of Noqaï, Jami' al-Tawarikh, 1430-1434



Mongol Horsearcher. Iran, early 15th century.
Staatsbibliothek Berlin, Diez A Fol. 72.



Shāh-Nāmeh. Shiraz. c.1435.
Bodleian Library. Oxford. Add. 176. fol. 63v
Rustam lifts Afrasiyab by the belt


Zafarnama of Ibrahim Sultan, Timurid Shiraz, 1436.


Timurid Soldiers from Tarīḫ-i Ğuvaynī.
Conquest of the World, 1438.



Ulugh Beg, eldest son of Shah Rukh, seated on a carpet,
Samarqand, 1435-1440



Minuchihr slays Salm, Shahnamah of 1435-1440.
British Museum number: 1948,1009,0.49.




'Darab taken prisoner' in an Anthology of Iskandar Sultan. Timurid Shiraz, 1410AD. Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, p.166.


More illustrations from Baysunghur's copy of the Shahnama by Ferdowsi, 1430


More illustrations from the Jami' al-Tawarikh of c.1430AD


'Book of Fixed Stars' (Kitāb suwar al-kawākib al-ṯābita)
by ‛Abd al-Rahman ibn ‛Umar al-Ṣūfī., BnF ms Arabe 5036, c.1430-1440, Samarkand.



Timurid Soldiers from Tarīḫ-i Ğuvaynī. Conquest of the World, 1438.


Timurid Soldiers from Muhammad Juki's copy of the Shahnamah by Ferdowsi, early 1440s.



The Timurids and the Turkmen
The Timurids’ ancestor, Timur (Tamerlane), belonged to a branch of the Turkic-Mongol Chagatay clan, which had settled in Central Asia. He had married a Mongol princess whose family was supposed to have been descended from Genghis Khan. Like the Mongols, Timur amassed an enormous realm within a short span of time. From his capital of Samarkand, he conquered Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan in 1370 and carried out victorious campaigns against the Mamluks in Syria and the Ottomans in Anatolia. In the southeast, he and his troops penetrated far into India, where they plundered Delhi, and only his death in 1405 put an end to a campaign in China. Timur’s empire was divided up among his many relatives, as the Turkic and Mongol tradition for inheritance prescribed. As a result of this fragmentation and pressure from Turkmen tribes, the Timurid Empire was soon reduced to Central Asia and the eastern part of Iran.

Various nomad Turkmen groups were among the many Central Asiatic peoples that were forced westward before the Mongol advance in the first half of the 13th century. At the beginning of the 15th century, some of them were able to occupy the Timurids’ lands in the west. The Aq Qoyunlu (white sheep) Turkmen became the region’s leading power for a short time under the great commander Uzun Hasan, whose dream of an empire was stopped by the Ottomans in Anatolia in 1473. After his death, the realm quickly disintegrated because of dissent among his successors and pressure from the Ottomans and Iran’s new power, the Safavids.

Under the Timurids, Samarkand and Herat played an important role for long periods as both capitals and art centers. The Timurids were great patrons. They commissioned enormous building projects and founded workshops that employed captive artists and craftsmen. The diversity of their background is reflected in their artistic output, but the influence of Far Eastern culture is especially characteristic. Often very colorful Timurid art features Chinese mythical beasts and flowers, and the forms of ceramics were also inspired by Chinese porcelain. Numerous Timurid princes were themselves calligraphers and great bibliophiles. They founded workshops to make costly manuscripts, and Timurid miniature painting from Herat in the 15th century is considered one of the culminations of Persian painting.

Timurid art had a decisive influence on Ottoman and Safavid art, both through booty taken in war and through the artists who were captured and worked for the new rulers.
Source: David Collection Museum, Copenhagen


Map of Tamerlane's Empire.
  Source: p454, The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia by Professor René Grousset.

Notes on, and drawings of, Persian cavalry by Ian Heath:
Persian Cavalryman, Early-15th Century
Persian Cavalrymen C.1430
Persian Cavalryman C.1440
Persian Cavalryman, Late-15th Century
Persian Cavalryman C.1495
Persian Musician

Article on the Battle of Ankara by Altar Modelling



Before the Timurids:
Illustrations of Ilkhanid Mongols and Successors in 14th Century Persia and surrounds
Jalayrid Mongols

Persian Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers
Index of Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers