Herat, Afghanistan, 1970s

This was a complex comprising of a mosque, madrassa, mausoleum and over twenty minarets commissioned by Gowhar Shad, the wife of Shah Rukh, in the late 15th century. Robert Byron was so moved by its fine decoration to write 'if the mosaic on the rest of the Musalla surpassed or even equalled what survives today, there was never such a mosque before or since.' The complex was reduced to rubble, apart from a few minarets, by the British Army in the Second Afghan War.