The Palace of Sultan Mas'ud III is a

Ghaznavid The Ghaznavid dynasty ( ''Ġaznaviyān'') was a Persianate Muslim dynasty of Turkic ''mamluk'' origin. It ruled the Ghaznavid Empire or the Empire of Ghazni from 977 to 1186, which at its greatest extent, extended from the Oxus to the Indus Va ...

palace in

Ghazni Ghazni (, ), historically known as Ghaznayn () or Ghazna (), also transliterated as Ghuznee, and anciently known as Alexandria in Opiana (), is a city in southeastern Afghanistan with a population of around 190,000 people. The city is strategica ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

. The palace was built in 1112 by Sultan Mas'ūd III (1099-1114/5), son of

Ibrahim of Ghazna Ibrahim of Ghazna (b. 1033 – d. 1099) was sultan of the Ghaznavid empire from April 1059 until his death in 1099. Having been imprisoned at the fortress of Barghund, he was one of the Ghaznavid princes that escaped the usurper Toghrul's massac ...

Description

Many of the archeological remains were unearthed in an Italian archeological mission in the 1960s. There is a dado with a poem in

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

and

Kufic script The Kufic script () is a style of Arabic script, that gained prominence early on as a preferred script for Quran transcription and architectural decoration, and it has since become a reference and an archetype for a number of other Arabic scripts ...

and one in

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

. There is a marble arch bearing the name of the sultan. The site has a small cemetery that includes the domed ziyarat of

in the west side of the palace. File:MNAO-GhazniPalMasudIII-Lastra1.jpg, Carved relief from the Palace of Masud III File:MNAO-GhazniPalMasudIII-DecorazioneCotto3.jpg, Carved relief from the Palace of Masud III File:Architectural panel Afghanistan Ghaznavid dynasty reign of Mas ud III 1100-1150 CE Marble (2414429094).jpg, Ghaznavid panel, Palace of Masud III.

External links

Italian excavation of the Palace

References

{{Reflist Buildings and structures in Ghazni Province Palaces in Afghanistan