Located just below Hyderabad’s famous Golconda Fort is Qutb Shahi Heritage Park, one of the world’s most significant medieval necropolises. The 43-hectare site hosts more than 70 mausoleums, mosques, wells, a mortuary bath, pavilions, garden buildings and other structures. The tomb complex, built during the approximately 170-year reign of the Qutb Shahi dynasty in the Hyderabad region during the 16th and 17th centuries, is the beneficiary of a major conservation and landscape restoration project. The project aims to ensure the long-term preservation and accessibility of the site, which has earned tentative listing in the World Heritage List.

The restoration project, expected to be completed in 2023, is being implemented by a private philanthropic foundation, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC), in partnership with the Department of Archaeology and Museums of the Government of Telangana. AKTC is an agency of the Aga Khan Development Network, which is active in 30 countries, especially in Asia and Africa.

A key piece of the project was made possible by a $101,000 (Rs. 67 lakhs approximately) grant from the U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP) of the U.S. State Department. AFCP supports the preservation of cultural sites, cultural objects and forms of traditional cultural expression in more than 100 countries around the world.