Unknown Tombs, Sirhind

Cunningham’s records date it to about 1555, in Humayun’s time, and suggest it was raised after the Battle of Sirhind in memory of important nobles who fell fighting in Humayun’s army. This is an attribution rather than a proven fact, and no inscription confirms who is buried here. The tomb stands right next to the Hathi-Ghoda tombs, which are dated to 1555 and tied to the same battle, and it shares their architectural style and building materials. This makes it reasonable to treat the buildings as related and roughly contemporary, though the identity of those buried here remains unconfirmed. Inside is a star-shaped motif with “Allah” at its centre, which Cunningham compared to a similar motif in the tomb of Adham Khan in Mehrauli, an early Mughal building from the same period. The tomb is octagonal and built of Sirhindi brick, a brick native to Punjab and Haryana. The arches are laid with unusual care, with bricks set flat in places and gently sloped above, and finished in lime plaster. Blue glazed tiles survive on the exterior and are slowly fading, and the design is thought to draw on Central Asian monuments such as those of Samarkand. Half the dome collapsed in 1988 after heavy rain. Subhash Parihar, who first visited in 1980, saw it largely intact. ASI also did renovation work roughly 15 years ago and cleared trees that had grown on the structure.