# The Taj Mahal (some questions) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [December 21, 2025, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-taj-mahal-some-questions/1025922 "2025-12-21T20:20:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![saucywench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@saucywench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saucywench)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-taj-mahal-some-questions/1025922/21 "2025-12-22T18:07:51Z")
Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Xocomil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xocomil/32/14927_2.png) [@Xocomil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xocomil)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2025, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-taj-mahal-some-questions/1025922/22 "2025-12-22T20:39:52Z")
It looks computer generated, especially the shadows. Looking on Google Maps, there are no hills back there. At the very least, it’s been greatly enhanced. The interior shots look like a set. IMDB only lists a second unit crew shooting at the Taj Mahal. My understanding is that the second unit films without the principal actors. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2025, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-taj-mahal-some-questions/1025922/23 "2025-12-24T07:37:06Z")
> [@Xocomil](#): > > The interior shots look like a set. IMDB only lists a second unit crew shooting at the Taj Mahal. My understanding is that the second unit films without the principal actors. The interior shots are definitely a set as filming is not allowed within the Taj Mahal to preserve its sanctity. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2025, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-taj-mahal-some-questions/1025922/24 "2025-12-24T08:09:23Z")
I wonder why it has minarets. I know that Shah Jehan was Muslim, but aren’t minarets built only around mosques? ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2025, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-taj-mahal-some-questions/1025922/25 "2025-12-24T08:17:28Z")
I was there in 2005 on a dignitary detail. A large amount of the clientele were surprised to learn that it’s not a palace but a mausoleum. My hotel room had a balcony facing the front of the Taj. So while I was in bed I was looking upon it. It was just surreal! ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2025, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-taj-mahal-some-questions/1025922/26 "2025-12-25T01:21:50Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > aren’t minarets built only around mosques? Nope. I believe you’re right that the prayer-specific function of a minaret (the muezzin proclaiming the call to prayer) is limited to mosque structures, but other Islamic buildings including mausoleums can have tall slender towers. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2025, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-taj-mahal-some-questions/1025922/27 "2025-12-25T11:43:19Z")
The towers are also engineered so that each one leans away from the mausoleum so that if there is a sufficiently powerful earthquake to topple them they will fall outwards. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2025, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-taj-mahal-some-questions/1025922/28 "2025-12-25T12:37:21Z")
At least that was the hope. Earthquake motions are far more chaotic than ancient engineering could have dealt with. Or was it a decision to create forced perspective? Such that a person standing down below looking up would not see the typical parallel lines converging effect? Or both? I know I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2025, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-taj-mahal-some-questions/1025922/29 "2025-12-25T18:38:24Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > At least that was the hope. Earthquake motions are far more chaotic than ancient engineering could have dealt with. Don’t underestimate ancient architects and engineers. Sure, they didn’t have computers or even the formulas for calculating the forces, but they often had impressive intuition, based on experience and maybe experiments. Take the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul for instance. It was built more than 1000 years before the Taj Mahal, and though granted that the first dome collapsed in an earthquake soon after erection, the newly built and improved dome and the whole building still stand, in one of the most geological active regions of the world, and must have survived hundreds of quakes. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-taj-mahal-some-questions/1025922/30 "2025-12-26T15:38:12Z")
True. There’s also survivor bias at work. Many other buildings in Istanbul dating from the same era as the Hagia Sophia are long gone, and another 10 generations of stone buildings have collapsed on the same site since. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2025, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-taj-mahal-some-questions/1025922/31 "2025-12-26T22:01:22Z")
Also, overengineering was a big thing. Many of the structures that survive to today were massively overbuilt compared to the theoretical minimum requirements for structural integrity. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2025, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-taj-mahal-some-questions/1025922/32 "2025-12-27T00:46:55Z")
I was told, while visiting, that the vast Indian Plain, extending from the foot of the Himalaya to the sea, drops only a couple of hundred feet. I know I didn’t notice any hills either at/near the site, or on the journey there. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2025, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-taj-mahal-some-questions/1025922/33 "2025-12-28T00:54:13Z")
That should read ‘a couple of hundred meters’, not feet! Oops [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-taj-mahal-some-questions/1025922.md?page=1)