Umerkot
— — the desert town where an emperor was born.
Not only on a wall.
“A walled fort on the western edge of the Thar Desert, where the dunes meet Sindh's irrigated plain. The Mughal emperor Akbar was born here in 1542, during his father's flight from Delhi. The town keeps a Hindu majority unusual in Pakistan, and the Shiva Mandir near the bazaar dates back centuries. The dunes outside town turn copper by late afternoon.
Umerkot, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Umerkot sits on the western fringe of the Thar Desert in Sindh, southeastern Pakistan, about 350 kilometres east of Karachi. The town, with a population near 75,000, is the seat of Umerkot District and one of the few places in Pakistan with a Hindu majority population. The Umerkot Fort, a square brick stronghold attributed to the Soomro dynasty and later rebuilt under the Kalhoras in the eighteenth century, anchors the town centre. The Thar dunes rise to the east; the irrigated alluvial plain of the lower Indus extends west toward the river itself.
Umerkot's place in history rests on a single date in 1542, when the Mughal emperor Akbar was born inside the local raja's household during his father Humayun's exile from Delhi. A small memorial within the fort marks the birthplace. The fort itself houses a museum with Mughal-era arms and Sindhi manuscripts. The Shiva Mandir in the old bazaar, said by local tradition to be a thousand years old, draws Hindu pilgrims at Shivaratri. The annual Diwali and Holi celebrations are the largest of any town in Sindh.
Umerkot is reached by road from Mirpur Khas, about sixty kilometres west, which itself sits on the rail line from Karachi. The fort and museum open through the day, with a single ticket. The Shiva Mandir and the Akbar memorial stand within an easy walk of the bazaar. The cool months from November through February are the only comfortable time; summer temperatures rise above 45 degrees Celsius. The dunes east of town, on the road toward Nagarparkar, are at their best in the hour before sunset.