Diwan-i-Am From Naubhat Khana, a trail goes through east through broad lawns to the Diwan-i-Am the Public Audience hall. In this graceful hall, the Emperor used to sit daily on a royal marble throne with ornamental marble panels at the rear, which sparkled with inlaid expensive stones to listen to complaints or arguments from his subjects and to cope with administrative matters. A number of of these panels, detached by British soldiers at some point in the Indian Mutiny of 1857, were revealed in London and restoration was performed 50 years later by Lord Curzon. The floral patterns that still exist, reflect the towering degree of skill of the Mughal artisans. Beyond Diwan-i-Am, access was allowed just to the royalty.
There is a large formal garden and a row of five small palaces along the east wall of the fort, behind the Diwan-i-Am. The palaces were beautifully decorated with silver ceilings ornamented with golden flowers and crowned with gilded turrets, delicately painted and decorated with intricate pieces of mirrors. Between the garden and the palaces there was a stream flowing Nahr-i-Bihisht / Stream of Paradise , with a network of lotus shaped marble fountains. The palace on the extreme south is the Mumtaz Mahal / Palace of Jewels, now the Red Fort Museum of Archaeology, (Open daily except Fri 9am-5pm) with six apartments displaying relics from the Mughal Period including numerous paintings, weapons, textiles, carpets, ornate chess sets, hookahs and metal work.
Rang Mahal and Sheesh Mahal On the brink of the Mumtaz Mahal is the Rang Mahal , the Palace of Colors previously ornately painted, where the emperors chief wife used to reside and where the emperor ate the majority of his meals. The stream ran all the way through the palace and finished in the central pool having shape of lotus in the marble floor formerly with an ivory fountain in the center. Hundreds of tiny mirrors were placed into the ceilings of apartments on either side acknowledged as the Sheesh Mahal the Palace of Mirrors.
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