Humayun died at Delhi in January 1556 from a fall on his library stairs. His son Akbar, thirteen, was in the Punjab with Bairam Khan, campaigning.
Rather than take the boy back to a contested Delhi, Bairam Khan had him enthroned where he was, at Kalanaur in Gurdaspur district, on 14 February 1556, on a brick platform raised in a garden.
The platform is still there, in a field, about two metres square, protected but rarely visited. The Mughal empire of Akbar, which lasted fifty years and defined the shape of northern India, began on it.
Kalanaur was a substantial town at the time on the road between Lahore and the hills. It is now a small place in Gurdaspur district and the takht-i-Akbari is the only thing on any list.
One of the most consequential accessions in Indian history took place on a brick platform in a Punjab village and there is no interpretation, no museum and almost no signage.
Akbar was proclaimed emperor at Kalanaur in February 1556 at the age of thirteen, on a brick platform in a garden outside the town, after Humayun's death at Delhi.
The town was a substantial administrative centre before that and is named in the sultanate records. It is a small place now with the platform standing in a field.
The platform is a protected monument. There is a low enclosure around it, no interpretation, and on most days nobody there.