Tilya-Kori Madrasa

The central and youngest of the three madrasas on the Registan in Samarkand, completed in the seventeenth century and doubling as the city's main congregational mosque. Its name means gilded, referring to the lavish gold-leaf decoration of the interior prayer hall, whose ceiling appears domed through an optical illusion. The long facade closes the north side of the great square with rows of arched cells. Together with its neighbours it forms one of the most celebrated architectural ensembles in Central Asia.