Iran.^26 Early examples of polyhedral isometric geometry occur at the ruins
at Lashkar-i Bazar in Afghanistan traced to the Ghurid (1170s–1215)
dynasty. [Figure 21] Palatial plans resemble tenth-century residences in
the elite administrative city of Abbasid Samarra.^27 Like Umayyad desert
palaces and later Timurid palaces, they also included extensive programs of
figurative wall painting and ornate carved surfaces.^28 However, spaces that
might have harbored the repeating vegetal stuccowork characteristic of
earlier monuments from elsewhere in the Islamic world, such as the
Mschatta Facade or at the Medinat az-Zahra, are instead covered with
repeating polyhedral geometry. Surviving ninth-century painting from
Figure 21Josephine Powell,“Carved Geometric Decoration (Detail),”photograph,
Bust, Afghanistan, 1959–1961. Harvard Fine Arts Library, Powell Number AF45-123.
Josephine Powell Photograph, Courtesy of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library,
Harvard University
(^26) Necipoğlu,2017a: 26, 46. (^27) Allen,1988b: 61. (^28) Hoffman, 2008 ; Lentz, 1993.
Isometric Geometry in Islamic Perceptual Culture 275