The Taj Mahal is a love story, a sad and beautiful one. If it didn't exist, we could easily imagine that the story of its construction was simply a fairy tale.

In the year 1630, this beloved wife of the emperor died. He was so brokenhearted that he thought of giving up his throne, He decided,out of love for his wife, to build her the most beautiful tomb that had ever been seen.

He summoned the best artists and architects from India, Turkey, Persia, and Arabia, and finally, the design was completed. It took more than twenty thousand men working over a period of 18 years to build the Taj Mahal, one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.

The building itself stands on a marble platform 313 feet square and 22 feet high. Minarets, or towers, rise from each of the four corners. The Taj itself soars another 200 feet into the air. It is an eight-sided building made of white marble, and inlaid with twelve kinds of semi-precious stones in floral designs as well as with black marble inscriptions from the Koran (The emperor was of the Moslem faith). The building materials came from many countries, including Arabia,Egypt,Tibet, and various parts of India.

The emperor planned to build and identical tomb of black marble for himself on the other side of the river connected by a silver bridge. But his son imprisoned him in the palace before he could finish, and for the rest of his life, he could only gaze across the river at the shrine of his beloved.

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