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This important catalogue presents the collection in its entirety, before the looting and destruction of war. It is an invaluable tool in the fight against illicit trafficking and the preservation of Afghanistan's cultural heritage. Situated at the crossroads of the world's oldest trade routes and populated by a mosaic of cultures, Afghanistan has been the theatre of repeated conflicts over its long and complex history. In the midst of the warfare and civil unrest that ravaged this ancient land during the last two decades of the twentieth century, hundreds of precious artefacts were plundered from the collections of the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul, which was founded in the early 1930s. The destruction of these irreplaceable treasures like the much-publicized Bamiyan Buddhas that were brutally destroyed in 2001 represents a tremendous loss not only for the people of Afghanistan but for all of humanity.With the aim of keeping alive the memory of the museum's scattered collections, specialist Francine Tissot has compiled a systematic listing of the holdings as they were conserved, in their intact state, in the museum's showcases and reserve collections until 1985. This comprehensive catalogue, is illustrated with over 1,600 photographs and drawings.
As war raged across the jagged Afghan countryside, the staff of the Afghan National Museum spirited away, piece by piece, to hiding places all over the Kabul region, each time risking their lives, sworn to silence, it was a secret they kept until the fall of the Taliban--almost thirty years of deadly danger, courage, and fierce honor.
While many claims are made regarding the power of cultural heritage as a driver and enabler of sustainable development, the relationship between museums, heritage and development has received little academic scrutiny. This book stages a critical conversation between the interdisciplinary fields of museum studies, heritage studies and development studies to explore this under-researched sphere of development intervention. In an agenda-setting introduction, the editors explore the seemingly oppositional temporalities and values represented by these "past-making" and "future-making" projects, arguing that these provide a framework for mutual critique. Contributors to the volume bring insights from a wide range of academic and practitioner perspectives on a series of international case studies, which each raise challenging questions that reach beyond merely cultural concerns and fully engage with both the legacies of colonial power inequalities and the shifting geopolitical dynamics of contemporary international relations. Cultural heritage embodies different values and can be instrumentalized to serve different economic, social and political objectives within development contexts, but the past is also intrinsic to the present and is foundational to people’s aspirations for the future. Museums, Heritage and International Development explores the problematics as well as potentials, the politics as well as possibilities, in this fascinating nexus.
This volume provides an unparalleled exploration of ethics and museum practice, considering the controversies and debates which surround key issues such as provenance, ownership, cultural identity, environmental sustainability and social engagement. Using a variety of case studies which reflect the internal realities and daily activities of museums as they address these issues, from exhibition content and museum research to education, accountability and new technologies, Museums, Ethics and Cultural Heritage enables a greater understanding of the role of museums as complex and multifaceted institutions of cultural production, identity-formation and heritage preservation. Benefitting from ICOM’s unique position in the museum world, this collection brings a global range of academics and professionals together to examine museums ethics from multiple perspectives. Providing a more complete picture of the diverse activities now carried out by museums, Museums, Ethics and Cultural Heritage will appeal to practitioners, academics and students alike.
Since its publication in 1982, the Archaeological Gazetteer of Afghanistan has become the main reference work for the archaeology of Afghanistan, and the standard sites and monuments record for the region; archaeological sites are now referred to under their Gazetteer catalogue number as routine in academic literature, and the volume has become a key text for developing research in the area. This revised and updated edition has been significantly expanded to incorporate new field-work and discoveries, as well as older field-work more recently published, and presents new cases of synthesis and unpublished material from private archives. New discoveries include the Rabatak inscription detailing the genealogy of the Kushan kings, a huge archive of Bactrian documents, Aramaic documents from Balkh on the last days of the Persian empire, a new Greek inscription from Kandahar, two tons of coins from Mir Zakah, a Sasanian relief of Shapur at Rag-i Bibi, a Buddhist monastic 'city' at Kharwar, new discoveries of Buddhist art at Mes Aynak and Tepe Narenj, and a newly revealed city at the Minaret of Jam. With over 1500 catalogue entries, supplemented with concordance material, site plans, drawings, and detailed maps prepared from satellite imagery, the Archaeological Gazetteer of Afghanistan: Revised Edition is the most comprehensive reference work on the archaeology and monuments of the region ever undertaken. Cataloguing all recorded sites and monuments from the earliest times to the Timurid period, this volume will be an invaluable contribution to the renewed interest in Afghanistan's cultural heritage and an essential resource for students and researchers.
Gandhāran art is often regarded as the epitome of cultural exchange in antiquity. The ancient region of Gandhāra, centred on what is now the northern tip of Pakistan, has been called the ‘crossroads of Asia’. The Buddhist art produced in and around this area in the first few centuries AD exhibits extraordinary connections with other traditions across Asia and as far as the Mediterranean. Since the nineteenth century, the Graeco-Roman associations of Gandhāran art have attracted particular attention. Classically educated soldiers and administrators of that era were astonished by the uncanny resemblance of many works of Gandhāran sculpture to Greek and Roman art made thousands of miles to the west. More than a century later we can recognize that the Gandhāran artists’ appropriation of classical iconography and styles was diverse and extensive, but the explanation of this ‘influence’ remains puzzling and elusive. The Gandhāra Connections project at the University of Oxford’s Classical Art Research Centre was initiated principally to cast new light on this old problem. This volume is the third set of proceedings of the project’s annual workshop, and the first to address directly the question of cross-cultural influence on and by Gandhāran art. The contributors wrestle with old controversies, particularly the notion that Gandhāran art is a legacy of Hellenistic Greek rule in Central Asia and the growing consensus around the important role of the Roman Empire in shaping it. But they also seek to present a more complex and expansive view of the networks in which Gandhāra was embedded. Adopting a global perspective on the subject, they examine aspects of Gandhāra’s connections both within and beyond South Asia and Central Asia, including the profound influence which Gandhāran art itself had on the development of Buddhist art in China and India.
A pioneering study of the emergence of Buddhist art in southern India, featuring vibrant photography of rare works, many published here for the first time Named for two primary motifs in Buddhist art, the sacred bodhi tree and the protective snake, Tree & Serpent: Early Buddhist Art in India is the first publication to foreground devotional works produced in the Deccan from 200 BCE to 400 CE. Unlike traditional narratives, which focus on northern India (where the Buddha was born, taught, and died), this groundbreaking book presents Buddhist art from monastic sites in the south. Long neglected, this is among the earliest surviving bodies of Buddhist art, and among the most sublimely beautiful. An international team of researchers contributes new scholarship on the sculptural and devotional art associated with Buddhism, and masterpieces from recently excavated Buddhist sites are published here for the first time—including Kanaganahalli and Phanigiri, the most important new discoveries in a generation. With its exploration of Buddhism’s emergence in southern India, as well as of India’s deep commercial and cultural engagement with the Hellenized and Roman worlds, this definitive study expands our understanding of the origins of Buddhist art itself.
Drawing on ancient historical writings, the vast array of information gleaned in recent years from the study of Hellenistic coins, and startling archaeological evidence newly unearthed in Afghanistan, Frank L. Holt sets out to rediscover the ancient civilization of Bactria. In a gripping narrative informed by the author’s deep knowledge of his subject, this book covers two centuries of Bactria’s history, from its colonization by remnants of Alexander the Great’s army to the kingdom’s collapse at the time of a devastating series of nomadic invasions. Beginning with the few tantalizing traces left behind when the ‘empire of a thousand cities’ vanished, Holt takes up that trail and follows the remarkable and sometimes perilous journey of rediscovery. Lost World of the Ancient King describes how a single bit of evidence—a Greek coin—launched a search that drew explorers to the region occupied by the tumultuous warring tribes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Afghanistan. Coin by coin, king by king, the history of Bactria was reconstructed using the emerging methodologies of numismatics. In the twentieth century, extraordinary ancient texts added to the evidence. Finally, one of the ‘thousand cities’ was discovered and excavated, revealing an opulent palace, treasury, temple, and other buildings. Though these great discoveries soon fell victim to the Afghan political crisis that continues today, this book provides a thrilling chronicle of the search for one of the world’s most enigmatic empires.