Taj Mahal, covered in haze. The Taj Mahal was built in the seventeenth century by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a tomb for his wife, Mumtaz. It is built of marble and decorated with lapiz Lazuli, jade and turquoise. The condition of the Taj Mahal has severely deteriorated as local industry has boomed. In order to protect the building from pollution, the Indian government created the Taj Trapezium Zone in 1999, an area covering 10,400 square kilo-metres barring the existence of polluting businesses and industry. Photographed in Agra, India.