ABSTRACT
The Mongols valued craft, and the buildings and objects produced in West Asia during the period of Mongol rule under the Ilkhanate and the Chaghadaid khanate are notable for many features, including their number, quality, size, color, and interest in space and surface patterning. They are also important evidence for the development of Mongol society and the international connections of the Ilkhanids and the Chaghadaids, both eastward – particularly with their cousins, the Yuan, in East Asia – and westward with other Muslim polities and beyond into Europe. When the Mongols reached West Asia, they encountered lands with a substantial repertory of established construction materials, techniques, and forms used to erect a range of building types. One of the earliest commissions by the Ilkhanids was an observatory ordered by Hülegü in 1259 on a hill 500 m north of the summer capital at Maragha in northwest Iran.
