Present-day perils continue to endanger Afghanistan’s rich cultural heritage while the rest of the world remains largely unaware of this ancient region’s historical significance. Here could be found the easternmost extent of the Greek empire established by Alexander the Great and the westernmost reach of the Indian emperor Ashoka. Sites along its segment of the ancient Silk Road received and passed along not only sumptuous items of trade from the Mediterranean world and the Far East but also ideas, beliefs, and artistic influences. Much later, its ancient cities would be visited and admired by the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang in the 7th century and the Italian traveller Marco Polo in the 13th.
The National Museum of Afghanistan, located just outside Kabul, became a repository of exceptional finds from the numerous archaeological missions carried on within the country. In the decades of disorder and factional conflict following the end of Soviet occupation in 1989, Afghanistan’s treasures fell victim to vandalism, looting, and rocket attacks. While the fate of the colossal Buddha figures of Bamiyan at the hands of the Taliban in 2001 was well publicised, the whereabouts of the contents of the National Museum had been distressingly murky. What was left to see at the turn of the millennium was scant and damaged. Rumours circulated wildly about the Museum’s famous collection of Bactrian gold; it was feared lost forever.
Then, in August of 2003, the location of the lost treasures was revealed. Museum staff had hidden them in the bank vault of the presidential palace in Kabul and kept their location secret for more than two decades. An inventory conducted in the following year with the assistance of the National Geographic Society and the National Endowment for the Humanities counted more than 22,000 artefacts; virtually all of the museum’s most precious collection had remained intact.
This heroic tale is told in Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul, an exhibition organized by the government of Afghanistan in collaboration with the National Geographic Society and now on view at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. at the beginning of a 17-month American tour. Nearly 230 artefacts are featured in the exhibition. Drawn from four archaeological sites in northern Afghanistan – Tepe Fullol, Ai Khanum, Begram, and Tillya Tepe – they reflect the diverse cultural crosscurrents that shaped the region known in ancient times as Bactria.
The Tepe Fullol hoard, discovered in 1966, includes fragmentary gold vessels dating to between 2500 BC and 2200 BC. Decorated with images of bearded bulls and/or geometric patterns, they suggest the wealth of a local Bronze Age civilization and the mix of influences from both Mesopotamia and the Indus valley. Evidence of Mediterranean influence was abundant in the Greek city of Ai Khanum, dated to between the 4th and 2nd centuries BC. French archaeologists working between 1964 and 1978 found Corinthian columns, sculptures of Greek gods, and Central Asian figures carved in a Hellenistic style.
Begram in the 1st century was the summer capital of the Kushan empire, which was founded by a confederacy of tribes that had once lived along China’s northwestern border. At its zenith, the empire extended southward into the heart of India and westward into the Tarim Basin whence they came. Favorably positioned on the route between east and west and at a junction between the Central Asian Silk Road and India’s trade centres and seaports, Begram became a lively centre of commercial exchange. Excavations carried out by a French archaeological mission in 1939 uncovered works of art from Rome, India, and China. Included in the exhibition are elaborately carved ivory reliefs depicting sensuous female figures and architectural details closely reminiscent of the carvings on the Great Stupa at Sanchi in northern India. Also on view are painted glass beakers, bronze sculpture, and plaster medallions, many of which came from the Greek and Roman world.
The bulk of the exhibition, some 100 objects, is part of what has been dubbed the ‘Bactrian hoard’. In the winter of 1978, an ancient temple and the burial chambers of six wealthy nomads who lived at the beginning of the first century were found within a mound aptly named Tillya Tepe, or Hill of Gold. Soviet archaeologists working there unearthed about 21,000 artefacts, most of which were solid gold. This priceless collection included coins, crowns, belts, jewellery set with precious stones, vessels, Chinese mirrors, Indian ivory combs, and gold ornaments. Freshly inventoried and photographed, these works promise to yield much new information about a little known period between the end of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom and the beginning of the Kushan empire. A collapsible crown, for example, reflects the owner’s nomadic way of life. Other works, such as an appliqué known as the ‘Aphrodite of Bactria’ and a pair of clasps depicting Cupids on dolphins, reveal local goldsmiths blending motifs borrowed from Greek and Roman art with their own traditions.
In addition to highlighting the richness of Afghanistan’s cultural treasures, this exhibition is also a tale of survival. Accompanying the exhibits will be excerpts from a National Geographic film chronicling the quest for the Bactrian hoard and the search for a possible third Buddha buried in Bamiyan. According to a newsletter from the Embassy of Afghanistan, the exhibition seeks to ‘engage the American public in a dialogue on the perils and potential of preserving heritage and cultural identity in modern Afghanistan’. Today, it is reported that less than a quarter of the pre-conflict collection remains, and the museum building has been seriously damaged. Loan fees for the exhibition will help to rebuild the National Museum, train a new generation of museum professionals, and continue the study of these treasures.
The exhibition, which had been on view in Europe under the name Hidden Afghanistan, has been reorganised for its American tour by the National Gallery of Art and the National Geographic Society. It remains on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., until 7 September. Thereafter, it will be shown at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, 24 October–25 January, 2009; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 22 February –17 May, 2009; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 15 June –20 September, 2009. The fully illustrated exhibition catalogue, edited by Frederik T. Hiebert and Pierre Cambon, was published by National Geographic Books for the American tour.
