Darb-i Imam

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The shrine of Darb-i-Imam, located in the Dardasht quarter of Isfahan, Iran, is a funerary complex, with a cemetery, shrine structures, and courtyards belonging to different construction periods and styles. The first structures were built by Jalal al- Din Safarshah, during the Qara Qoyunlu reign in 1453.

Lu and Steinhardt have studied Islamic tiling patterns, called girih, which strongly resemble Penrose tilings, patterns discovered 1973 by the mathematician and physicist Roger Penrose. In 1984, they were found in natural substances called quasi-crystals that seemed to break the geometric rules of atomic packing. A girih design on the Darb-i-Imam shrine is almost identical to a Penrose tiling. One of the pattern's mesmerizing features is that, like a true quasi-crystal, it looks regular but never repeats.

[edit] References

• Lu P. J. & Steinhardt P. J.. Science, 315 . 1106 - 1110 (2007).

[edit] See Also

• Azulejo

[edit] External links

• Islamic tiles reveal sophisticated maths

• Image of tiles