Lower Govhar Agha Mosque

Status: Major damage

Lower Govhar Agha Mosque, located in the city of Shusha, is listed on the Republic of Azerbaijan's registry of heritage sites (inventory No. 345) as dating to the 18 ^th  century. ¹ 

In 1874-1875, the complex of the Lower Govhar Agha Mosque was completely rebuilt and reconstructed. Architect Karbalayi Safikhan Karabakhi built both the  Upper  and Lower Mosques with funding from Govhar Agha. Built according to the same architectural and planning principle, both of these Juma (cathedral) mosques have almost the same dimensions. Both mosques are two-tiered, designed with a three-arched iwan arcade on the side of the main, northern facade. The middle arch of the Lower Govhar Agha Mosque is lancet-shaped, accentuating the front entrance. The three-nave, almost square double-height prayer hall is surrounded by lancet vaults and covered by domes. Window openings were designed in the form of a bow arch. The round slender minarets of the Lower Mosque are made of bricks, the geometric pattern formed into a repeatedly reproduced color inscription - "Allah". The main façade opens onto a vast rectangular courtyard of a U-shaped two-story madrasa, the yard facades of which are covered with deep two-tiered iwans along the entire perimeter. ²  

Comparison of the KH-9 Hexagon imagery dated July 1980 ³  with satellite imagery captured in September 2002 ⁴  shows that during this period the mosque itself remained well-preserved, even as the accompanying structures (madrasa) to the north sustained major damage, likely between the early 1990s and 2002 (see the plan of the complex under Geolocation).

Between September 2002 and September 2021, the mosque remained in the same condition.

CHW geolocated the mosque using locational information (a fragment of the master plan of Shusha) provided in a 1977 academic study ⁶  of the architecture of Shusha as well as recent images of the mosque ( a ,  b ,  c ).

 ¹   Azərbaycan Respublikası Nazirlər Kabinetinin 2 avqust 2001-ci il tarixli, 132 nömrəli qərarına 1 nömrəli əlavə. 

 ²  Авалов Э. В., Архитектура города Шуши и проблемы сохранения его исторического облика. [Ред. А. В. Саламзаде]. АН АзССР, Ин-т архитектуры и искусства. Баку: Элм, 1977, pp. 60-62.

 ³  KH-9 Hexagon, D3C1216-100138A003, July 3, 1980.

 ⁴  Google Earth/Maxar Technologies, September 27, 2002.

 ⁵  Google Earth/Maxar Technologies, September 10, 2021.

 ⁶  Авалов Э. В., Архитектура города Шуши и проблемы сохранения его исторического облика. [Ред. А. В. Саламзаде]. АН АзССР, Ин-т архитектуры и искусства. Баку: Элм, 1977, p. 44.

 ⁷  Wikimedia Commons,  Aşağı Gövhərağa məscidinin planı .