Place · carved sandstone necropolis · Pakistan
Chaukhandi tombs
Also known as Chaukhandi tombs, Chaukhandi, Jokhio tombs, Landhi
A field of several hundred stepped sandstone tombs east of Karachi, built between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries for Jokhio and Baloch families, carved all over with geometric bands, rosettes and — on women's graves — jewellery, and on men's, weapons and mounted riders.
- Function
- Burial and funerary
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 24.830, 67.220
Worth knowing
Nothing in the Islamic world looks quite like them: the pyramidal stacking of carved slabs and the figurative riders are a Sindhi and Baloch idiom rather than a Persian one, and they belong to the same regional stone tradition as the Makli necropolis eighty kilometres away. Almost all of them are unnamed and undated.
Connections (1)
- AnalogueMakli Necropolis, Thatta
The Chaukhandi tombs east of Karachi and the Makli necropolis above Thatta are the two great funerary stone fields of Sindh, and the carving on both is a regional idiom rather than a Persian one: stepped stacked slabs, geometric bands, jewellery cut on women's graves and mounted riders with weapons on men's. Almost every Chaukhandi tomb is unnamed and undated.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Chaukhandi tombs”. Salome Zajadacz-Hastenrath, Chaukhandi Tombs: Funerary Art in Sind and Baluchistan (2003); Sindh antiquities department records.
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