Talhatan Baba Mosque

The Talhatan Baba Mosque is located 60 kilometres east of Merv, in a settlement in the Murgab Valley. This city is called Yoloten today, but it was known as Dalgatan Dalgalan in the Middle Ages. it is about 38 kilometres southwest of the Sultan Castle.

it is believed that the mosque was built in 1095, but there are no inscriptions or documentation in support of this.

There are traces of other buildings in the area of the mosque. The mosque is surrounded by a courtyard wall. There are two sarcophagi within the courtyard wall Since there are no inscriptions on the sarcophagi, it is not known to whom they belong. There are many rectangular prismatic sarcophagi in the courtyard of the mosque today. These were collected from the surrounding area and brought here to be exhibited. it is told that two of these sarcophagi belong to Talhatan Baba, who lived during the Seljuk period, and his colleague and friend from the madrasa, hence the name attributed to the mosque.

Constructed of brick, the technique of wall building consisted of laying the brick in different arrangements. The exterior walls were supported by buttresses in the west comer. However, these buttresses were removed during repairs made in 1987. The mosque, which has a rectangular plan, was built with a single, central dome placed in front of the mihrab. The mihrab is in the middle. The bays are square and covered by two cross vaults on each side. The dome rests on the wall at the side of the mihrab, on L-shaped pilfars in front of the mihrab, and on square pilfars in the center. Transition to the dome is made using high squinches. The squinch openings are connected to each other by arches, effectively creating a hexagonal section at the drum level. There are projecting surfaces shaped by brickwork, in relief, inside the squinch.

Each square pillar, in the middle, is connected to the side walls by an arch. The spaces between the arches and the wall are covered by cross vaults. The courtyard in front of the mosque is connected to it by an opening with three arches. The opening in the middle is largest and has a high arch. The openings on the sides are smaller. in this fashion, the building is similar to mosques with namazgakh (open-air prayer platforms). According to the building plan, the minaret would have been located in the west comer, but no remains of it exist today. There are false niches placed at equal intervals, with four pointed arches, on the mihrab wall of the building. The interiors of these niches are filled with different kinds of brickwork, set in varied ways. A relief effect was achieved by setting the bricks alternately in relief and in recess.

Different construction techniques were used on the walls of the mosque. Arranging bricks in different ways enlivened the appearance of the facades. While rhombus patterns in the shape of rosettes can be seen, it is the technique of using two rows of horizontally­l aid bricks and one row of vertically laid bricks which draws attenton throughout the building. The vertical brickwork placed between horizontal brickwork consists mostly of Scurves in terracotta. There is a simple mihrab niche inside the building. There is an interesting decoration comprised of terracotta rosettes, placed inside a Solomon's seal in the upper part of the mihrab.