Afghanistan National Museum was established in 1928. There are a number of hand-written inscriptions including hand-written copies of the Holy Quran, handicrafts and fragments of architecture, sculpture, metal objects, and coins preserved in the museum.
In an exclusive interview with The Kabul Times correspondent, Director of the country’s National Museum Mohammad Fahim Rahimi said the museum witnessed visitors from different segments of the Afghan society including schools and universities students, researchers, cultural figures and ordinary people visiting whatever were at the museum.
According to the head of the museum, foreign visitors are politicians, representatives of foreign countries to Afghanistan, researchers and journalists visits the museum with full enthusiasm. The foreign visitors are introduced to all historic artefacts and hand-written inscriptions and others preserved at the museum.
“Since the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) takeover, we have been able to identify hundreds of historic artefacts in the capital and provinces, address some artefacts needs to be repaired and renovated, create exhibition, select some artefacts for Bronze Period Exhibition, for which work is still underway,” Rahimi said, adding that more exhibitions to display the country’s historic artefacts and monuments will be held in future.
Afghanistan National Museum is determined to implement expanding plans by working on identifying, recording, repairing and preserving historic artefacts in the capital and provinces and trying to hold more exhibitions to display various historic and cultural artefacts from various periods in provincial capitals so that those interested can visit the country’s historic and cultural artefacts.
Head of the country’s national museum further said that they could create more local museums in each province in case the IEA supported them.
Currently, there are the prehistoric stone artefacts, Roman bronzes, coins of different periods and sculptures from the BC period being preserved at the museum. There’s a copy of the Holy Quran with the hand-written of Usman bin Affan, the third caliph of Islam, verses from the Holy Quran with the hand-written of Imam Hassan and others are part of artefacts preserved at the Afghanistan National Museum.
Some of the historic artefacts that including gold coins of the period of Western Greece, Safavid, Ghazanavi, Seljuki, Abbasi, Sassani and Kushani. 1,192 silver-made coins of the Ghaznavid period have been discovered from the outskirts of Helmand’s Boost and submitted to the national museum.
Also, there are several inscriptions preserved at the museum as Boostan -e-Saadi with hand-written of Mir Emad, a known calligrapher of Timurid era, of the Divan of Mirza Abdul Qadir Bidel, gifted by the Emir of Bukhara to the King of Afghanistan, Amir Habibullah and others are part of the museum’s literal and art artefacts.
Other important works of the artistic artefacts of the National Museum of Afghanistan are the miniature works by Kamaluddin Behzad. In consideration to increasing the discovered artefacts, there are several museums in the country in Herat, Maimana, Ghazni, Balkh and Kandahar as Herat Museum is known for its more than 4,000 historic artefacts. A number of the museum’s artefacts are some traditional arms and weapons.
It is worth mentioning that during the past several decades of war in Afghanistan, nearly 100,000 historic artefacts of the museum had been stolen and trafficked outside. In the past 21 years, only 20 percent of the museum’s stolen and trafficked artefacts have been returned and submitted to the museum.
Zarabi
Plans underway for development of Afghanistan National Museum
