Latest / Tamerlane: The Conqueror Who Tried to Rebuild the Mongol Legacy — Fexingo History
Tamerlane's Captive Calligraphers: The Samarkand Scriptorium
In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore Tamerlane's systematic capture of master calligraphers from Baghdad, Shiraz, and Tabriz, and how their relocation to Samarkand sparked a golden age of Islamic calligraphy. They discuss the role of the kitabkhana (royal scriptorium), the evolution of the naskh and riq'a scripts under Timurid patronage, and the famous calligrapher Abd al-Rahman al-Khwarazmi who trained a generation of scribes. The episode also touches on the cultural prestige Tamerlane sought by hoarding not just gold and goods, but artistic talent, and how the…
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