A Comparative on the Front Piece Decorations of the Rounded Tower of Maragheh and Segonbad of Urmia

Azerbaijan region is one of the important centers in terms of Islamic architecture, the process of architectural development there is very old and the construction of tombs, especially tower tombs, has been very prosperous in this region. From the Seljuk era, tower tombs have been built in this area, which can be considered as one of the masterpieces of brickwork of this period, which are remarkable in terms of technique and variety of execution designs, and they somehow show the evolution of this group of decorations in the 6th century. For the facade of these tower tombs, bricks in certain sizes and with various geometric shapes are used in geometric, checkered, zigzag, horizontal and broken, cruciform, star, and polygon designs. Later, these bricks were used as a general feature of architecture in minarets, doorways, domes, and other parts of the building, which indicates the creative power of the architects of this period. Of course, brickwork was sometimes accompanied by other decorations such as plastering and monochromatic tiles, which can be seen in the round tower of Maragheh (563 AH) and Se Gonbad Tower Tomb in Urmia (580 AH). These two towers are among the most beautiful and significant historical towers of the Seljuk era, which are decorated with detailed arrays of brickwork and are a good representation of the common way of decorating the buildings of the mentioned period with bricks. The current research seeks to answer this question: What are the characteristics of the brickwork and plastering decorations of the two towers of the Maragheh circular tomb and Se Gonbad of Urmia in terms of designs and motifs, and what are the differences and similarities? The purpose of this research is to introduce and document the characteristics of the decorations used in the two mentioned buildings, as well as to compare the brickwork and plastering decorations of the round towers of Maragheh and Se Gonbad in Urmia. The current research has studied the decorations of the round towers of Maragheh and Se Gonbad in Urmia with a descriptive-analytical method and qualitatively analyzed the library, documentary, and field information. After conducting investigations, we found that there are common features in terms of motifs and composition in the decorations of the two towers of the mausoleum, which emphasize the common style in the Seljuk period. The findings indicate that in these two buildings (circular plan), the main emphasis is on the front and the entrance facade, and in this section, various brickwork decorations and a combination of brick and plaster have been used. The use of inscriptions in Kufic script on the foreheads of the arches and the use of geometrical decorations (knots) on the main border around the frontispiece are other features and similarities of these two tower tombs. In general, it can be concluded that the way of dividing the heads to implement decorations, the placement of decorations and inscriptions, the wide use of geometric motifs (nodes), and the use of turned bricks to create nodes are significant common features in these two samples. However, there are differences in the type of knots, quantity and quality of these geometric motifs, and implementation techniques.