Thatta

Thatta is a city in the Pakistani province of Sindh. Thatta was the medieval capital of Sindh, and served as the seat of power for three successive dynasties. Its construction was ordered by Jam Nizamuddin II in 1495. Thatta's historic significance has yielded several monuments in and around the city. Thatta's Makli Necropolis, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is site of one of the world's largest cemeteries and has numerous monumental tombs built between the 14th and 18th centuries designed in a syncretic funerary style characteristic of lower Sindh. The city's 17th century Shah Jahan Mosque is richly embellished with decorative tiles, and is considered to have the most elaborate display of tile work in the South Asia.

==Etymology== Thatta refers to riverside settlements. Villagers in the rural areas of lower Sindh often refer to the city as Thatta Nagar, or simply Nagar. The name of Thatta, one of the oldest towns, was derived from the Persian term Tah-Tah which literally means "layer over layer", signifying a settlement that has gone through various civilizations. Ḳāni, an 18th-century scholar, gave two theories regarding the etymology of Thatta. The first theory suggests that Thatta is a distortion of ‘Teh Teh’ which refers to the migration of people from northern cities to Thatta. The second theory suggests that the name originates from thatt, the Sindhi term for a place of gathering.