The name of the second master is Usta 'Ali Touki-kub. Experts call this mausoleum «Majolica» since its interior and the main façade are decorated with polychromatic majolica. The three exterior facades are fronted with paired polished bricks alternating chequerwise with blue ornamental inserts which specialists call «bows». The framing of the mausoleum's portal is also rather original.
The relief tiles are intertwined with the stripes of colored majolica on which survived an inscription made in the kufic script. The characters of the inscription are intertwined, thus forming a band of octactinal stars and cartouches. Arches filled with stalactite festoons connect the interior corners of the mausoleum. A dome with polychromatic facing rests on the tetragon tier. The plaited bands with lettering form a stellular geometrical design girikh filled with painted majolica tiles. A gravestone has survived on the mausoleum's floor. Archeologists also determined that there is a small tomb-chest covered by a vault under the floor. The time of the mausoleum construction has not been recorded, however, in experts' opinion, it was erected in the last decade of the 14th century.
A wide decorative strip runs along the perimeter of both pylons and its tympana in the portal. It contains an inscription consisting of separate relief majolica tiles. Actually, there are three bands of inscriptions on this strip. The external and internal bands contain the Surah al-Ikhlaas from the Koran which is replicated several dozen times. These strips of lettering are inscribed with white characters in the decorative kufic script ( something between geometrical and floral designs of this style ). Both strips of the inscriptions are divided by a yellow band with the iterative word «الموت» - «Death» inside of it written with azure characters in the conventional type of the italic and inelegant penmanship.
You can read more about the inscriptions on the buildings of the memorial ensemble in the book-album “Samarkand. Shakhi-Zinda” series “Architectural epigraphy of Uzbekistan”.
