Humayun's Tomb, restoration project

Stone work at Humayun's Tomb

distinctive speckly local red sandstone was used originally, and is still used today for restoration work.

This old pillar has a classic Mughal "chevron" pattern.

Some of the recent restoration work was criticized for being highly insensitive. They can do ( and usually do) a lot better job than this. Some contractor was skimming funds and buying cheap modern marble. Disgraceful!

Teams of stonemasons are contracted to carry out the painstaking carving work during the winter months, each piece of stone is carefully measured to fit. The water channel restoration alone required over 3000
meters of dressed sandstone. Sometimes the delicate "jali" screens have to be replaced. All is done with amazing precision. I will try to get a photo of how they transfer the intricate fretwork design to the stone, the
pattern is punched into a sheet of tin, and the design is "pounced" through tiny regular pinholes using charcoal or blueing powder. They carve within these templates.

Most of the stonemasons come from areas where stonework is traditional, especially Rajasthan.

Well, it's a job. A team of elder women get to work hammering bricks into dust, for the traditional mortar preparation. They were very cheery that day! I suppose working in a circle helps.

One day I came to the tomb with freinds, and we passed a group of masons setting stones with traditional mortar. I am familiar with this kind of mortar, when were began restoration on our own castle in Rajasthan, we idealistically began using exclusively the original recipie for traditional mortar. The mortar is a lovely suede-pink colour, and it contains, brick dust, powdered slaked lime, and a good portion of raw brown sugar, called "gur". Sometimes it also has crushed fenugreek seeds as a binder, and jute fibres.
I showed my freinds, telling them that you can taste the sugar in the mortar, and took a wee lick along with my freind Ruth. It was..hot.
I asked the masons, "what did you put in here?"
"We put acid",
"from what" , says I...
"from this"...and he showed us crushed used batteries!
So there's the modern binder for you.