The construction of this monument took a time period of 22 years(1632-1653). A workforce of 20,000 laborers was brought from here and there for building the Taj Mahal. Over 1000 elephants were used to transport building materials during the construction. The walls and dome of Taj Mahal were covered with semi precious stones and gems that were later plundered in successive wars.The inlay work in the Taj Mahal has been done with 28 kind of rare, semi precious and precious stones.
It is said that ShahJahan had planned to build another Taj Mahal in black marble. There is a mosque on the left of Taj Mahal, made of red sandstone. This mosque is used for conducting Friday prayers, even today. People say that ShahJahan ordered that the hands of the craftsmen and architect be chopped off after building Taj Mahal, as he did not want them to build another grand monument as this one. Some European scholar’s claim that Taj Mahal was designed by an Italian architect by the name of Geronimo Veroneo. However, there is no hard evidence to prove this claim.
