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| Head of a Youth. Afghanistan, Aï Khanum, early 2nd Century B.C. Unfired clay. 21 x 15 cm (8 1/4 x 6 in.). National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul. © Musée Guimet/Thierry Ollivier. |
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| Beaker Depicting Figures Harvesting Dates. Afghanistan, Begram, 1st Century A.D. Enameled glass. H. 12.6 cm (5 in.); Diam. 8 cm (3 1/4 in.). National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul. © Musée Guimet/Thierry Ollivier. |
Hiebert, Fredrik and Pierre Cambon (eds.), et al. Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul (exh. cat.). New York and Washington, D.C.: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and National Geographic Society, 2008.
Review by STAN PARCHIN
August 22, 2009
The story of Afghanistan's ancient cultural patrimony stretches back more than 4,000 years. It begins in the Bronze Age and ends with the safeguarding of many of the Central Asian nation's antiquities from Soviet invasion and Taliban rule. The precious objects' cultural significance, discovery and recovery in 2003 are described in Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul. The 304-page softbound catalogue accompanies the traveling exhibition of the same name.
Co-published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Geographic Society in 2008, Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures... contains 300 color images, black and white photography, maps and drawings. All of the exhibition's artifacts are illustrated and fully explained.
Two of the text's nine authors are also its editors. Fredrick Hiebert is a National Geographic Society Archaeology Fellow and developer of the exhibition. Pierre Cambon is Chief Curator of the Heritage of the Afghan/Pakistan Section of the Guimet Museum of Asiatic Arts in Paris, France, where the show's European incarnation debuted in 2006.
Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures... is neatly divided into seven chapters. Noteworthy among the book's three introductory essays is Hiebert's treatment of the region's ancient history and the principal archaeological sites represented in the exhibition: Tepe Fullol, Aï Khanum, Begram and Tillya Tepe. The volume's four remaining chapters describe the show's nearly 230 works in gold, bronze, glass, ivory and terracotta. A valuable contribution by Russian archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi details his discovery in 1978 of the so-called Bactrian Hoard, some 22,000 gold artifacts excavated from the graves of six nomads in northern Afghanistan. A two-page selected bibliography of relevant scholarly publications in included.
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Furniture Element with Female Riding Fantastic Creature. Afghanistan, Begram, 1st-2nd Century A.D. Ivory. H. 30 cm (11 7/8 in.). National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul. © Musée Guimet/Thierry Ollivier. | Headdress Pendant Depicting a Dragon Master. Afghanistan, Tillya Tepe Tomb II, 1st Century A.D. Gold with turquoise, garnet, lapis lazuli, carnelian and pearls. 12.5 x 6.5 cm (5 x 2 5/8 in.). National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul. © Musée Guimet/Thierry Ollivier. |