Taj Mahal Completed

1653

Twenty-one years after the foundations were laid, the mausoleum of Mumtaz Mahal at Agra was declared finished. Its white marble dome, inlaid with semiprecious stones, rose above a garden of flowing water. Shah Jahan had spent perhaps thirty-two million rupees and achieved the architectural masterpiece of the Mughal empire, a monument to conjugal love that travelers would call the most beautiful building on earth.