>> Introduction
SPACH is an organization specifically concerned with
the preservation of Afghanistan's cultural heritage,
and one of few such organizations currently working
in Afghanistan. SPACH has focussed its attention on
the sphere of Afghanistan's material heritage, advocating
for the role that this particular facet of the national
identity can play in nation-building. SPACH has been
predominately active in the areas of supporting the
Kabul Museum and preserving its collections, advocacy
and awareness-raising in regard to the plight of cultural
heritage in Afghanistan in general and in relation to
specific sites of cultural significance, and in field
surveys and emergency conservation works on endangered
monuments and sites. These endeavours have taken place
against the backdrop of a devastating civil war in Afghanistan
and under successive regimes, some more hostile to cultural
issues than others. Since the end of the civil war and
the fall of the Taliban government, SPACH has continued
its work in Afghanistan in a shifting socio-political
context, facing some new issues related to the reconstruction
process on the one hand, and on the other, some familiar
and ongoing problems that are no less challenging in
the current environment.
Indeed, cultural heritage in Afghanistan is perhaps
as much under threat in the current climate as it was
when SPACH was created in 1994, despite the fact that
this was a time when the civil war raged unabated in
Afghanistan. This is due to the overlap and interaction
of several extremely complex and ongoing social factors
that we should consider briefly by way of introduction
to the work of SPACH. Firstly, lawlessness and intermittent
factional hostilities continue in provinces where historical
monuments and archaeological sites of world significance
are situated. The threat to these sites comes from increasing
looting, vandalism, neglect, and occasional military
action. Secondly, the rapid pace of post-war development
and reconstruction in Afghanistan has lead to authorities,
the private sector, and some international NGO's endorsing
and pursuing construction projects with scant regard
at times for the heritage of particular sites, or for
heritage values in general. Thirdly, a whole generation
of Afghans endured more than twenty years of war and
were in many cases deprived of an education that encompassed
knowledge and respect for the cultural heritage of their
homeland. Furthermore, many Afghans with expertise in
the various related fields of cultural heritage have
yet to return and contribute to the reconstruction process
in Afghanistan, and the institutions to which they would
return in any case, have few resources to employ them.
These factors, coupled with abject poverty directly
created by war and drought, in conjunction with mere
opportunism in some cases, naturally puts great pressure
on artefacts in demand on the world-wide black-market
in stolen or looted antiquities. Finally, the volume
of money, expertise and will required to adequately
preserve cultural heritage in Afghanistan far outweighs
the commitment of the international community at present.
For many the threat to Afghanistan's cultural heritage
became acute in the early 1990's with the looting and
destruction of the Kabul Museum, while for others it
culminated in 2001 when the international community
witnessed the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan.
Notwithstanding the importance of these events, the
danger to Afghanistan's cultural heritage has grown
steadily over the past few years as evidenced by an
increase in the looting and destruction of significant
sites in virtually every province of the country.
Thus, SPACH as an organization today finds itself in
similar circumstances and pursuing similar objectives
as it did when it was created in Pakistan in 1994 during
the civil war, amid a growing realization and concern
for the desperate plight of Afghanistan's significant
sites, monuments and artefacts. Nonetheless, SPACH and
other organizations, expatriate and local individuals,
have worked with no small measure of success to better
the situation over the years. What follows is an attempt
to provide some details of the work of SPACH during
the period and to outline the cultural and political
context in which those activities have taken place.
>> SPACH and
the Kabul Museum
One event in particular that brought
the founders of SPACH together in order to create a
focal point for these concerns was the looting of the
Kabul Museum. Principally, through the efforts of Nancy
Dupree, Sotirios Mousouris (the UN Special Representative
to Afghanistan in 1994), several professionals and concerned
individuals closely linked to the Museum, including
Carla Grissmann, Jolyon Leslie and Brigitte Neubacher,
created this Society initially to try to stem the tide
of looting and destruction suffered by the Kabul Museum.
From its inception, SPACH was mainly focused on advocacy
among those who could use their resources (money, negotiating
position, political influence) to support this objective.
In particular the major initial donors included the
governments of Cyprus, Netherlands, Norway and Portugal.
SPACH receives ongoing support for this and other objectives
from the governments of Greece, Italy, Netherlands and
the United States, and from UNESCO and the National
Geographic Society.
> Background to the Destruction
of the Kabul Museum:
The Kabul Museum itself seems initially
to have been a victim of circumstance resulting from
its location outside the city of Kabul, and then later
to fall victim to more overt, organized and targeted
theft. It had housed some highly significant artefacts
of the history and archaeology of Central Asia, from
the Palaeolithic up to the Islamic period. It is situated
in a wide open plain on the outskirts of Kabul city
in Darulaman, a few miles south of the heart of the
city. The relative isolation of Darulaman and the strategic
hills that ring this part of the city led to it becoming
a frontline between combatants contending for the capital.
The Museum itself was taken over by the Ministry of
Defence and at various times the line dividing the warring
parties could even be drawn at its doorstep. As a result,
during the 1990's the Museum and its collections suffered
from an onslaught of rocket fire, grenades and assault
rifles (as did most of Kabul city), ultimately resulting
in important pieces of Afghanistan's and the world's
cultural heritage being either obliterated or scurried
away to the antiquities markets of Pakistan where they
were disseminated to wealthy buyers on the world market
and potentially lost from public view forever. These
events were a highly visible and symbolic manifestation
of a threat to the cultural heritage of Afghanistan
that had been growing since the Soviet occupation.
> Early Assistance to the Kabul
Museum:
The early objectives of SPACH in working
closely with the Kabul Museum involved securing what
was left of the Museum's collection and attempting to
retrieve looted objects from the antiquities markets
before they went completely underground. An important
activity of SPACH in the mid-1990's was seeking financial
and political support for this objective through the
dissemination of regular updates to the press and relevant
international groups concerning the state of the National
Museum in Kabul.
Remedial works organized by Jolyon Leslie and funded
by UN-Habitat were first undertaken on the building
during 1994 to weatherproof the ruins and to provide
a degree of security for the surviving stores. At the
same time the museum staff was able to retrieve hundreds
of objects from the debris and more than 1,500 objects
were also recovered in Kabul by various individuals
and the National Commission for the Preservation and
Retrieval of Afghanistan's Cultural and Historical Heritage;
a body set up on a Rabbani Government initiative. SPACH
was also able to retrieve a limited number of objects
from Pakistan.
> The Return of Looted Objects
to the Kabul Museum:
Between 1994 and 1996 a total of 48 important
objects looted from the Kabul Museum were returned to
the Ministry of Information and Culture by SPACH. Despite
the massive scale of the losses from the Museum collections,
this was a significant achievement given the circumstances
and constraints under which people had to work. SPACH
managed to purchase some objects directly from antiquities
dealers, as various important pieces appeared in antiquities
markets, indeed some with the Museum's registration
numbers still painted on their surfaces. Such activities
are not in normal circumstances to be recommended, but
the circumstances of the day were exceptional. Firstly,
these objects had a certifiable provenance, had been
documented, inventoried and scientifically studied progressively
by innumerable scholars during the course of the twentieth
century. Secondly, Afghan civil society had all but
broken down and antiquities were flowing freely across
their porous borders with Pakistan. It was a case of
using desperate measures during the height of the civil
war to try to stem the flow of artefacts directly stolen
from the Kabul Museum and to preserve them as documented
objects of the cultural heritage of Afghanistan.
Nonetheless, it proved to be a near impossible task
for various reasons, and also highly dangerous and fraught
with ethical dilemmas. For one, it meant having to "buy
in" to an illegal market that went hand-in-hand
with the smuggling and sale of weapons and drugs. Secondly,
once news of the looting and "availability"
of items from the Kabul Museum surfaced, prices and
demand were largely driven from abroad by wealthy participants
in the illegal traffic from all over the world, increasing
the problem tenfold. SPACH was ultimately unwilling,
and in any case unable, to pay the astronomical prices
being asked, in some cases reaching up to a quarter
of a million US dollars. Much time and effort was spent
in attempting to locate the more significant objects
held by the Kabul Museum, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
This exercise was further hindered by the appearance
of fakes, however, some even with copied Museum numbers
that began to flourish in the Peshawar region in the
mid to late 1990's. After months of searching, verifying
and bargaining, some significant objects from Begram
and Hadda amongst other sites were recovered.
Despite great efforts by all concerned, the problem
of looting just seemed to keep getting worse through
the 1990's. After the most portable objects had been
looted from the Museum and sold (coins and small ivory
pieces for example) the looters became even more audacious
in their attempts to acquire specific objects, suggesting
that they knew exactly what they were looking for. One
such example came in 1996 when a schist Buddha in the
foyer of the Museum that had been presumed too heavy
to be stolen was simply removed from the wall overnight.
This implied more than mere opportunism in this case
as it is not uncommon for looters to target specific
objects or object types in order to fill orders from
middlemen directly connected to wealthy foreign buyers.
SPACH worked all through this period, as it continues
to do so in the present, to raise awareness of the scale
of the problem with international and local organizations,
authorities and governments, and to advocate for more
adequate protective measures.
> Inventorying the Collection
of the Kabul Museum:
Unfortunately, the Kabul Museum had been
attacked and looted several times since 1992 despite
continued efforts by SPACH and others to secure the
building and the collections. Three thousand objects
in total were painstakingly rescued from the mounds
of debris from the roof that was first felled by rocket
attacks in May 1993. An obvious priority for the Museum
was to verify what exactly had been lost and what remained
of the collection. UNESCO made several attempts to send
a delegation from the Guimet Museum headed by Pierre
Cambon to conduct an inventory of the remaining collections
of the museum. However, the first attempt in June 1995
was thwarted by fighting in Kabul as was the second
in September 1995. Pierre Cambon did manage to come
to Kabul for two weeks, but again in November 1995 another
rocket hit the building and exposed the collection once
more to the elements and to opportunistic pilfering.
Principally through the efforts of Carla Grissmann (SPACH),
an attempt was made in 1996 to conduct another preliminary
inventory of the remaining objects of the Kabul Museum
and to facilitate a plan to have them removed to more
secure premises. Due to the obvious lack of security
at Darulaman, the Ministry of Information and Culture
of President Rabbani's government was also anxious to
safeguard what remained of the collection. Thus, the
objects were packed up and the Kabul Hotel in the centre
of the city was chosen as a temporary site to house
them along with 71 Kabul Museum staff members.
From April to September 1996, just two weeks before
the arrival of the Taliban in Kabul, over 500 crates,
trunks and boxes, containing 3,311 objects were shifted
from the Museum to the Kabul Hotel. The project was
ultimately successful but was hampered all the way by
continued hostilities. Participants in the exercise
reported carefully packing objects while the Kabul Museum
building shook with incoming and outgoing rocket fire.
Also, during the process the bus that carried Museum
staff to and from the Museum was fired upon and there
were several periods where staff simply could not go
because of incessant shelling and rocket fire. Between
1996 and 2000, Carla Grissmann's work continued and
a total of 6,520 objects were inventoried in Dari and
English. The aggregate total, however, was much higher
as hundreds of similar objects from various sites and
periods were registered under single numbers, e.g.,
arrow heads, flints, pebbles etc. In 1998, that part
of the collections that had been moved to the Kabul
Hotel was moved to the Ministry of Information and Culture
where it had appeared to have found a secure, albeit
temporary home.
A Brief Re-opening of the Kabul Museum in August 2000:
In July 2000, the Deputy Minister of Information and
Culture in the Taliban government, Mawlawi Hotaki, made
plans to put a small number of objects on display and
organize a public event that would coincide with the
presentation of the Rabatak inscription brought back
from Pul-I-Khumri, and also to celebrate Jeshyn, Afghan
Independence Day, on August the 17th. The Taliban requested
that SPACH provide some logistical support for the exhibition.
SPACH held meetings with Mr. Hotaki, a politically moderate
member of the Taliban government, who advocated for
the exhibition and for SPACH to provide assistance.
There were some legitimate suspicions about the motives
of the Taliban given their general hostility to cultural
heritage outside their particular stream of Islam. One
factor in favour of supporting this endeavour was repeated
assurances from the Taliban authorities and the decrees
of Mullah Omar himself that expressly forbade traffic
in antiquities, looting or vandalism of any kind, and
promised punishment under the full weight of the law
(see for example SPACH Newsletter No. 6, May 2000, p.
18).
The exhibition took place and twenty-four objects were
put on display in the entrance and hallway, half permanently
in place, including the superb clay Bodhisattva from
Tepe Maranjan. The former library was turned into an
exhibition room and eight tables of ethnographic artefacts,
mainly from Nuristan, and confiscated objects from the
Islamic period, were put on display. A number of people
visited the Museum after the 17th of August and by the
23rd of August everything was packed up once again and
the Rabatak inscription taken to the Ministry of Information
and Culture store room.
Few could have predicted at that time that the Taliban
would embark on a spree of iconoclasm in Bamiyan, the
Kabul Museum, and in the Ministry of Information and
Culture offices where the collections had been moved
in 1998. The relatively moderate Minister of Information
and Culture was replaced by Qadratullah Jamal, a cohort
of hard liners following the Al-Qaida line in the Cabinet,
Deputy Minister Mulawi Hotaki was sacked, and Mullah
Omar reversed his earlier decrees by calling for the
destruction of the Buddhas. Artefacts revered by people
from all over the world for their aesthetic value or
archaeological/historical significance, were irreversibly
smashed into thousands of pieces. This leaves the Kabul
Museum staff, with assistance of foreign museums and
conservators, many years of painstaking work ahead of
them to salvage what they can from the rubble. Work
has begun with assistance from the Foreign Commonwealth
Office (Great Britain), the Guimet Museum (France) and
The National Institute for Cultural Properties (Japan).
Recent Assistance to the Kabul Museum:
More recently, during 2003-2004 SPACH has been able
to encourage and assist a number of donors in supporting
the reconstruction of the Museum building and to purchase
equipment for its day-to-day functioning. Among these
donors are: Hellenic Aid, the UNESCO/Italy Trust Fund,
the Foreign Commonwealth Office (UK) and the National
Geographic Society (Washington). In March 2003, SPACH
provided the Museum with electricity thanks to a grant
of US $30,000 from Hellenic Aid, and the technical assistance
of the CIMIC-Dutch ISAF, and in November 2003, SPACH
allocated US $40,000 from the UNESCO/Italy Trust Fund
to reconstruct the Museum's roof. Major work on the
roof was finished in late 2003, before the onset of
the heavy winter snows. SPACH is now working on the
allocation of a further grant provided by the National
Geographic Society to cover the remaining works on the
second floor. The building is now secure, structurally
sound and weatherproofed.
Top
>> Advocacy
and Awareness-Raising
In light of the conflict throughout the
1990's, the continual changing of hands of the Museum
building, and the constant subjection of the collections
to new threats, a core objective of SPACH soon became
awareness-raising in order to garner support from all
quarters to find and implement solutions to the problem.
Of course, the problem was much broader than merely
the threat to the Kabul Museum, and SPACH personnel
had necessarily to widen their advocacy and awareness-raising
activities to encompass the plight of cultural heritage
in Afghanistan in general. Indeed, since the outbreak
of war in 1979, significant monuments, artifacts and
archaeological sites across the entire country have
been threatened by fighting looting, neglect, thoughtless
vandalism and even iconoclasm. The historic site of
Buddhist pilgrimage, Hadda, near Jalalabad, is one such
example of a site where Afghanistan and the world have
been deprived of a significant part of their cultural
heritage. The site contained unique sculptures in a
Graeco-Buddhist style which were excavated and left
in situ on the walls of the monastery in a splendid
open-air museum, only then to be destroyed by a combination
of fighting, looting and vandalism in the 1980's. The
complex now lies in ruins with only occasionally discernible
pieces of broken stone column bases, formally in situ,
scattered amongst the ruins. Other examples of cultural
vandalism occurred in 1998 and 1999 when the small Buddha
in Bamiyan was hit in the midriff by a rocket, and in
1999 when tyres were burned on the ledge forming the
chin of the big Buddha. SPACH had urged the authorities
on several occasions to ensure the protection of the
Buddhas and were given assurances to that effect. Nonetheless,
to everybody's dismay, SPACH's appeals did not seem
to reach the troops on the frontline.
Notwithstanding, various advocacy and awareness-raising
techniques employed by SPACH have proved to be useful
tools in achieving objectives in certain instances,
and SPACH has employed them with equal fervour amongst
both foreign and successive Afghan governments from
those of President Rabbani to the Taliban, and in the
more hopeful circumstances of the present day. Part
of this duty has meant that members of SPACH have been
and continue to be in contact with international experts
on Afghanistan and mass media concerned about the issue
of Afghanistan's cultural heritage.
> SPACH Newsletter and Library
Series:
SPACH used its publications in order
to bring current events into focus and also to urge
Afghan authorities and the international community to
take steps to stem the tide of destruction to cultural
heritage in Afghanistan. Besides direct advocacy, SPACH's
awareness-raising took place principally through the
means of the SPACH Newsletter and Library Series, which
became quite popular among Afghans and foreigners working
in or on Afghanistan alike. SPACH's membership and reputation
began to grow as a result. SPACH published regular newsletters
from 1996 onwards and also a library series containing
informative articles on various topics concerning cultural
heritage in Afghanistan (they are available on the website).
Throughout this period the Newsletter and the Library
Series aimed at raising awareness amongst particular
social groups, such as educated Afghans and foreigners,
who might be able to lend their support to cultural
heritage imperatives in Afghanistan. SPACH's media publications
are now focused on the World Wide Web, which has proved
to be a more far reaching means of awareness-raising,
but still publishes information in hardcopy format also.
The SPACH website contains articles and contributions
from academics and individuals within Afghanistan and
from around the world, and up-to-date news on current
issues and events concerning cultural heritage in Afghanistan.
The site is published from the SPACH office in the heart
of Kabul city.
> Lectures, Seminars and other
fora:
SPACH, over the years, has tried to assist
in the development of strategies and policies that would
move Afghan institutions towards a strengthening of
their ability to preserve cultural heritage. One such
example is SPACH's participation over the last year
in a consultative group chaired by the Ministry of Information
and Culture, with UNESCO as the focal point, the function
of which is to both inform the Ministry of the activities
of donor and implementing agencies active in Afghanistan,
and to assist the Ministry on formulating cultural policy
and priorities. SPACH members have also participated
in many international seminars, workshops and lectures
about Afghanistan's Cultural Heritage and continue to
do so. In this regard we must make special mention of
Mrs. Nancy Dupree, founding member of SPACH, who has
worked tirelessly in awareness-raising for Afghan cultural
heritage over more than four decades and who continues
to do so up to the present day. Further mention should
also be made of Carla Grissmann who has also worked
over several decades in the field of cultural heritage
in Afghanistan and who continues to work closely with
SPACH.
SPACH has also given its support over the years (monetary,
logistical and in terms of expertise) for lectures and
exhibitions as a means of raising awareness about the
richness and vulnerability of the cultural heritage
of Afghanistan. SPACH members continue to work closely
with representatives of the Ministry of Information
and Culture, the United Nations Education Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International
Council of Museums (ICOM), and other cultural institutions
worldwide in order to solicit advice and support for
the preservation of the threatened heritage of the country.
During the year 2003, for example, SPACH organized and
sponsored three lectures in the Auditorium of the University
of Kabul with the cooperation of the Dean of the Faculty
of Social Sciences, Dr. Rawish, and the Head of the
Archaeology Department, Mr. Usmani. The first lecture
was given by Professor Sims-Williams, entitled "Recent
discoveries in Greco-Bactrian language and their historical
significance". The second one was given by Mr.
Zafar Paiman, entitled "Buddhism in Bamiyan during
the Hephtalite period", and the third was given
by Dr. Max Klimburg, entitled "From Afghan Kafiristan
to Nuristan: Kafir past and present life in Nuristan".
Another lecture was organized specifically for Kabul
Museum staff and interested parties by Dr. Klimburg
concerning the Nuristani collection in the Kabul Museum.
Such events are seen as a means of keeping Afghan scholars
in touch with research taking place in other parts of
the world, and also keeping foreign scholars aware of
the challenges facing education, scholarship and research
institutions in Afghanistan.
Top
>> Documentation
of Monuments and Sites
One of the great strengths of SPACH as
an organization has been the preparedness of its personnel
to work and travel inside Afghanistan to assess first-hand
potential threats, and the implications and limitations
of policies and theories when witnessed at the practical
level of implementation, even when security could not
be assured. In this manner SPACH has been able to keep
abreast of developments and threats to monuments and
sites across the country as they unfolded and continue
to unfold, and to advocate for policy change and action
when necessary. In many cases through advocacy and awareness-raising
such threats have been neutralized before they became
crises. On other occasions, of course, despite great
efforts to agitate for the protection of certain monuments,
such as in the two Bamiyan Buddha crises of 1998 and
2001, overwhelming local and geo-political factors have
militated against successful outcomes. However, such
outcomes make the activity and its objectives no less
necessary or worthy, but indeed more so.
The SPACH representative in Kabul during 2000, Robert
Kluyver, was extremely active in this regard, conducting
numerous surveys throughout Taliban Afghanistan in order
to record the status of monuments and sites and to identify
urgent conservation needs. On other occasions SPACH
has employed the services of foreign scholars to survey
and document endangered sites and new finds. The late
Italian archaeologist, Maurizio Taddei, conducted one
such survey on behalf of SPACH and UNESCO in 1999, returning
to Ghazni where he excavated extensively in the 1960's
and 1970's. He reported on the current status and made
conservation recommendations for the Buddhist site at
Tepe Sardar and the Islamic Palace of Massoud III. Another
SPACH expedition in 1997 to Rabatak, Baghlan Province,
by Dr. Jonathon Lee, ensured the safe retrieval of the
highly significant "Rabatak Inscription" from
Pul-i-Khumri where it was thought lost since 1993. The
inscription has contributed much to knowledge of the
Kushan period.
Support for other assessment missions
to sites of historic importance have taken place in
Kabul, Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, Jalalabad (Hadda), Ghazni,
Ghor (Jam Minaret), Baghlan, Bamiyan, Fariyab, Badghis
and Ai-Khanoum, amongst others. The resulting reports
and photographs were disseminated to the relevant institutions
in Afghanistan and abroad as part of SPACH's overall
awareness raising and advocacy activities. These documents
have also been able to supplement the loss of other
important documents related to historic sites in the
country for research purposes.
This documentary process also keeps us painfully aware
of the scale of the problem in Afghanistan. Looting,
damage or destruction to significant monuments and sites
continues in virtually every province. In 2003 SPACH
accompanied Dr. Raheen, the Minister for Information
and Culture, and professionals from the Institute of
Archaeology and the Historical Monuments Department
to many sites where raising awareness about the importance
of Afghan cultural heritage was urgently needed. For
instance, especially disturbing was seeing damage caused
by a rocket to the Shrine of Abu Nasr Parsa, one of
the architectural masterpieces in Afghanistan, which
occurred during factional fighting in Balkh in October
of that year. Furthermore, the damage to the delicate
ornamentation of Masjid-e Noh Gumbad, the oldest surviving
mosque in Afghanistan, caused simply by children throwing
stones and a lack of protection. Another example is
the ongoing looting of Kafir Kot, in Kharwar, a vast
Buddhist archaeological site, surveyed recently by the
Italian archaeologist Professor Verardi. Other important
sites for the understanding of the Kushan period were
surveyed, such as Surkh Kotal and Rabatak, the latter
showing signs of recent looting yet again.
SPACH has organized this documentation into a photo
catalogue of sites, made up of both pre-war scholarship
(1979) and updated material from recent site visits.
Dissemination of this information to interested individuals
and institutions in Afghanistan and abroad, as a means
of developing an understanding of the priorities for
remedial works and possible lobbying, has been a productive
activity over the years. This record, by way of comparison,
also enables us to keep abreast of the deterioration
of particular sites and monuments and to new threats
to those sites as they emerge. It also contributes to
awareness-raising as it is extensively used by Afghan
editors of Dari and Pashto magazines read throughout
Afghanistan. SPACH is advocating for a large project
to create a comprehensive nationwide catalogue, the
aim of which is to document the status of all monuments
and archaeological sites in Afghanistan. In order to
facilitate the study of these monuments and sites, SPACH
has compiled more than 4,000 photographs taken by members
of SPACH and other contributors. These pictures are
an important step towards a National Inventory of Monuments
and Sites and will be easily accessible to Afghan and
foreign scholars in CD Rom format. In May 2004, SPACH
will fund another expedition to Pul-i-Khumri in order
to scientifically document a recently discovered bas-relief
that will contribute to our knowledge of Kushano-Sassanid
Afghanistan.
Top
>> Emergency
Conservation Works
The coming to power of the Taliban in
1996 further justified the necessary role of SPACH in
Afghanistan. Although the Taliban were generally hostile
to numerous facets of the Afghan culture, they did provide
cultural heritage a relatively more secure environment
in which to conduct emergency conservation work to particular
monuments in urgent need. In these more secure conditions
SPACH began taking on restoration projects, mostly at
the insistence of SPACH's Afghan partners and later
through assurances by the Taliban themselves. The great
problem in Afghanistan in the late 1990's was a lack
of larger, alternative organizations with more professional
know how and greater resources, such as UNESCO and its
affiliated organizations as well as other foreign archaeological/conservation
missions, which meant that there were few organizations
in Afghanistan able to conduct the work.
In this context, SPACH has carried out a number of minor
and more extensive emergency interventions to preserve
monuments in Afghanistan. Examples are the protective
wall built at the base of the Minaret of Jam in order
to prevent further flooding and erosion from the Jamrud
and Harirud rivers, and repairs to the protective roof
over Masjid-e-No Gumbad, undertaken by SPACH in conjunction
with the Monuments Department in Balkh. Other examples
are minor restoration work on the Mausoleum of Abd-Ur-Razzaq
in Ghazni, and the construction of walls at the Musalla
Complex in Herat to stop the encroachment of local traffic
and activities into the area, and also the rehabilitation
of the women's garden and some conservation works on
Minaret #4, also within the Musalla Complex. Furthermore,
SPACH provides ongoing assistance to the Tile Workshop
in Herat which thus helps to both preserve the artform
and to facilitate the restoration of monuments that
employ this detail in their decoration.
Top
>> The Future of SPACH
The social and political context within
Afghanistan, and within which SPACH is working for cultural
heritage, has changed dramatically over recent years.
There are now several organizations working within the
cultural heritage sphere at present in Afghanistan,
such as UNESCO, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, the
Délégation Archéologique Française
en Afghanistan (DAFA), and the Istituto Italiano per
l'Africa e l'Oriente (IsIAO). SPACH has recently undertaken
an organizational review and strategic planning process
in order to better adapt as an organization in the current
environment, avoid overlap with other organizations,
and better serve cultural heritage in Afghanistan in
general. SPACH is now positioned as an "information
clearinghouse," a focal point for foreign scholars
and institutions, providing up-to-date knowledge and
advice on the cultural heritage scene in Afghanistan.
SPACH is currently also focusing its attention on assisting
the Museum in organizational and managerial issues and
providing training for its staff. SPACH is providing
computer and language training in the Museum to enable
the staff to take full advantage of restoration, conservation
and inventory training provided by foreign specialists.
SPACH is facilitating a modern computerized inventory
of the remaining objects of the collections in conjunction
with the National Geographic Society. As a result, in
the coming years the Kabul Museum will have a state-of-the-art
electronic inventory and museum management database
at its disposal for both collection management and research
purposes. We are also providing preliminary support
for a national survey of monuments and sites which will
assist local and foreign scholars, governments and international
organizations in prioritizing conservation requirements
and the use of scarce resources for this purpose. It
also aims to be a powerful research tool, assisting
local and international scholarship in general.
In the coming years, SPACH will also continue to work
closely with the Kabul and other museums in Afghanistan
and abroad, and with local and international organizations
active in cultural heritage. SPACH will also continue
to agitate within its advocacy and awareness-raising
mandate for the preservation of sites and monuments
in Afghanistan, for better educational opportunities
for Afghans in the sphere of cultural heritage, for
development that is sensitive to cultural heritage values,
and for any and all projects that will better serve
the preservation of cultural heritage in Afghanistan
for those generations of Afghans to follow.
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