Amer Fort: Detail, one gate in the fortification walls

Amer is dominated by the palace complex located halfway up a hill crowned by massive fortifications. Below, a maze of buildings constitutes the town. The palace complex was built along a north-south axis over a period of ca. 100 years. Raja Man Singh (reigned ca. 1590-1614) built the original palace at the southernmost end, a central courtyard surrounded by a rectangle of even, uniform structures. Further additions were made to the palace in the 17th and 18th centuries. Two sets of courtyards and structures, showing rich cross-fertilization between the Mughal and Rajput styles, were added along the northern axis by Mirza Raja Jai Singh (reigned 1623-1667). In 1727 Jai Singh II founded his new capital at Jaipur, and Amer was abandoned from 1728.