In partnership with the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and

the National Museum of Afghanistan

In association with National Geographic

Supported by

Surviving treasures from the National Museum of Afghanistan

Visit guide for teachers

2

Contents

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3 Using the exhibition

5 Background information

12 Classroom activities

15 Adult helpers: briefing sheet

16 Exhibition activity sheets

21 Other resources

Cover: Gold crown. From Tillya Tepe, Afghanistan, 1st century AD. National Museum of Afghanistan. © Musée Guimet/Thierry Ollivier.

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Using the exhibition

Exhibition entry is free for school groups. All visiting groups must pre-book through the British Museum Ticket Desk.

IN AdVANCe

n Use some of the ideas for pre-visit activities in the classroom on pages 12–14

n Create your working groups of students.

n Select which activity sheets you will use with the students and go through the sheets with the students.

n Set up one of the suggested activities on pages 12–13 and/or explain your own enquiry tasks or activities.

n Decide on an additional ‘big question’ for the students to think about as they go round (see page 14)

ON THe dAY

n Divide your class into their smaller groups with an adult assigned to each group. On page 15 is a sheet to aid adult helpers in supporting their groups.

n Give each adult a free exhibition guide which you can obtain at the entrance to the exhibition.

n Tell adult helpers about which objects or aspects of the exhibition you will be using as a stimulus for follow-up work so that they can ensure the students engage with these while they are going round the exhibition.

n Remind students to look at all aspects of the exhibition: objects, photographs, maps, graphics and text.

n Your visit to the exhibition will take place alongside the general public, so please remind students to be considerate.

n The exhibition is popular and quite crowded, so it is not recommended that children draw.

n Photography is not allowed within the exhibition, but students could go on and visit related objects in permanent galleries where photography is permitted (see page 21).

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AfTerwArdS

n Discuss the students’ responses and impressions.

n Follow up the activities they did and the questions they considered with development activities.

n There is a whiteboard presentation with high quality images of a selection of objects in the exhibition which you can download from the website. It is recommended that you make use of this before your visit to stir the interest of the students and after the visit to stimulate responses based on their experience of the real things. Download the presentation at www.britishmuseum.org/afghanistan

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Background information

The exhibition has an introductory section, four main rooms, each of which focuses on the archaeological discoveries from a single site, and a conclusion.

Four main educational objectives have been devised for the exhibition. They are:

n to appreciate and enjoy the rich and ancient cultural heritage of Afghanistan through rare and aesthetically beautiful objects that have not been seen before in the UK

n to understand that trade flowed in both directions through Afghanistan between Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures such as Greece, Rome, Egypt and Iran and the eastern cultures of India and Pakistan and that this had an impact on local culture

n to appreciate that the ancient Greek world extended as far as Afghanistan

n to appreciate the efforts being made to preserve Afghan heritage

The following pages provide information about each section of the exhibition and indicate the objectives that the sections support best.

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INTrOdUCTION

Objectives

n to understand that trade flowed in both directions through Afghanistan

n to appreciate the efforts being made to preserve Afghan heritage

‘Afghanistan stands at the crossroads of many civilisations. At the heart of the Silk road, Afghanistan was the historic link between China, India, Persia, the Middle east and the west.’ (President Hamid Karzai)

Afghanistan is a country with an extraordinarily rich history. Lying at the heart of Asia, it was once home to ancient civilisations and part of a vast network of trading routes that stretched from China to Rome.

The introductory film shows footage of events in Afghanistan from the 1970s to 2003/4. It reveals how the objects in the exhibition were hidden away during the years of conflict, so preserving a part of Afghan’s ancient cultural heritage. The film lasts about 6 minutes. Students will probably find the commentary difficult to make out and at a high language level, so advise them to look for the maps showing where Afghanistan is, images of the landscape and animals traditionally used to travel through it and images of warfare and of the rescue of the museum treasures.

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rOOM 1: TePe fUllOl

Objective

n to appreciate and enjoy the rich and ancient cultural heritage of Afghanistan

On 5 July 1966 a group of Afghan farmers discovered a buried hoard of gold and silver near a mound (tepe), just outside the village of Fullol in north-east Afghanistan. News soon reached the National Museum in Kabul, and archaeologists hurried to the site. There they recovered the remains of seventeen gold and silver vessels, three of which are displayed here. The excavations suggested the bowls had originally been placed in a grave. These treasures, from 4,000 years ago, were the first signs of a previously unknown and wealthy civilisation in the region.

During the 1970s, Soviet archaeologists gradually uncovered evidence of a network of settlements in northern Afghanistan and the surrounding areas. These date between about 2200 and 1800 BC and suggested a rich shared culture. The settlements relied on farming, but would have been closely connected through trade with each other and with cities in Central Asia and eastern Iran. The fragments of one of the vessels show a boar, trees and a mountain – a small picture, perhaps, of the owner’s surroundings 4,000 years ago. One of the goblets shows a procession of bulls similar to designs found on objects from Mesopotamia, but the bowl was probably made by a local craftsman. Almost 2,000 kilometres of rugged mountains and deserts lay between these Bronze Age cultures. The goblet is evidence that not only goods but inspiration and ideas were already traded across the ancient world.

When the Fullol villagers first found the hoard, such a rich treasure posed many questions, because archaeologists then knew so little about ancient northern Afghanistan. Fullol lay close to the upper reaches of the Oxus river, rich in gold-bearing sand, and less than 200 kilometres away from the only known source of lapis lazuli in the ancient world. This deep blue stone was highly valued, and whoever controlled the mines at this period would have grown rich from its export.

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rOOM 2: AI KHANUM

Objectives

n to appreciate and enjoy the rich and ancient cultural heritage of Afghanistan

n to appreciate that the ancient Greek world extended as far as Afghanistan

In 1961 the Afghan king Zahir Shah was hunting in the marshes near the Oxus river, when a local villager showed him a carved stone. Recognising its importance, he reported the find to French archaeologists then working in Afghanistan. Four years later excavations began at the site where the stone was found. They revealed the ruins of an ancient Greek city, once an outpost at the very edge of the Greek world. Its original name was lost, but locals called it Ai Khanum, meaning Moon Lady, after a local Uzbek princess.

As Alexander the Great’s troops travelled across Central Asia and settled, local people became influenced by Greek styles and fashions – an effect known as Hellenism. Ai Khanum was founded in about 300 BC by Seleucus I, a former general of Alexander. The city was naturally defended, with rivers on two sides and a high rocky citadel behind. Its defences were strengthened by a city wall. Almost all of the features of the city are Greek. Excavations of the lower city uncovered a palace at the centre, an amphitheatre, a gymnasium, temples, and houses for the nobility. The city became an important centre, where Greek art merged with local traditions, creating a distinctive style.

The city’s main temple stood on the main street of Ai Khanum. It was built of sun-dried bricks, set on a stepped base, with a flat roof. A wide entrance hall led directly to a smaller cult room probably containing the statue of a god. Most of the deities found at Ai Khanum were typically those worshipped in ancient Greece, but possibly given local names.

The end of Ai Khanum came suddenly around 145 BC. Nomads from the north-east, displaced from Chinese Central Asia set fire to the palace and robbed the treasury. Local people living outside the city walls moved in and settled throughout the site, plundering goods and possessions that the Greek colonists had left behind. By about 130 BC, the city of Ai Khanum lay abandoned. It was all but forgotten for more than 2,000 years, until its excavation between 1965 and 1979. It was looted a final time in the 1980s when the lower city was totally destroyed by people searching for antiquities.

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rOOM 3: BegrAM

Objectives

n to appreciate and enjoy the rich and ancient cultural heritage of Afghanistan

n to understand that trade flowed in both directions through Afghanistan between east and west

The city of Begram lay in a fertile valley south of the Hindu Kush mountains. In 1937 French archaeologists excavating the ancient site discovered a concealed room filled with treasure. Two years later they found a second room, also filled with valuable goods. The rooms contained hundreds of luxury items, imported from China, India and the Roman Empire. At first archaeologists believed they had found a warehouse belonging to merchants trading along the Silk Road. More recent research suggests the rooms lay at the heart of a palace. Perhaps these were the hoarded treasures of the Kushan royal family, concealed at a moment of crisis over 2,000 years ago and their existence forgotten.

The objects from Begram represent one of the most spectacular finds of goods traded along the ‘Silk Road’ during the first century AD. The city had connections with India and China, was a commercial hub where traders bought and sold merchandise, and was an indirect market for Roman luxury items via the Indian Ocean.

The Kushan rulers relied on the exchange of diplomatic gifts and display and entertainment to emphasise their wealth and status. The store of objects at Begram includes many precious items that may have been used at royal banquets. Items in the storerooms were placed on benches around the walls or stacked on the floor. They included intricately carved and coloured Indian ivory furniture, rock-crystal, porphyry and translucent alabaster jugs, coloured and enamelled glass vessels, lacquer bowls, and even a group of ostrich eggs mounted as wine-pourers. The lacquer was imported from China and the ivories came from India, but other items came by ship from Roman Egypt. Many of the objects were in poor condition and needed careful conservation.

Many of the objects at Begram are imported from India or show Indian artistic influence. Egypt was a major centre of glass production in the Roman Empire. Egyptian glass was transported east by ship via the Red Sea and Indian Ocean and on by river inland. Porphyry and alabaster were highly valued. The stones were mined in the Egyptian Eastern Desert, and transported to workshops in Roman Egypt, where it was crafted into vessels and exported across the Roman world and beyond.

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rOOM 4: TIllYA TePe

Objectives

n to appreciate and enjoy the rich and ancient cultural heritage of Afghanistan

n to understand that trade flowed in both directions through Afghanistan between east and west

In the winter of 1978, a team of Soviet archaeologists excavating a 4,000-year-old site in north-east Afghanistan discovered six graves belonging to a man and five women, all nomads buried in the first century AD. Lying alongside them was the wealth they carried to the afterlife – over 20,000 objects of gold and semi-precious stones, a selection of which is shown here. The local Uzbek name for the site was Tillya Tepe, meaning Hill of Gold.

Many of the grave goods found at Tillya Tepe were made in Central Asia, in traditional nomadic style. The riches were light and easy to carry on horseback. Almost all of the items would have been worn as personal ornaments or stitched onto cloth. Most date to the first century AD, but a few were much older, perhaps booty looted by earlier generations of nomads.

A personal seal, made of milky-blue chalcedony, is the oldest heirloom found at Tillya Tepe. It was made in western Turkey, then part of the Persian Empire. Among the objects from other regions found in the graves were an Indian comb, Chinese mirrors and Roman and Parthian coins.

The first tomb to be discovered belonged to a woman aged between twenty and thirty years old and 1.58 metres (5 feet 2 inches) tall. She was buried on her back with her arms by her sides and surrounded by over 2,000 gold ornaments. These included earrings and hair or headdress decorations, as well as gold appliqués and pearls attached to her clothing with gold thread. Although the cloth has long since rotted away, drawings made at the time the tomb was discovered have allowed archaeologists to attempt to reconstruct the clothing. Two different interpretations are shown for each burial in this exhibition.

The graves at Tillya Tepe contained many varieties of amulet. Amulets were not simply decorative, but are part of a widespread tradition intended to ward off evil. The colours of lapis lazuli and turquoise must have been seen as very powerful because they have been used so often as inlays. Blue amulets, worn to ward off the Evil Eye, have been treasured in the Middle East for over 6,000 years.

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CONClUSION

Objective

n to appreciate the efforts being made to preserve Afghan heritage

‘A nation stays alive if its culture stays alive.’ Motto of the National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul

The objects displayed in this exhibition are from the National Museum in Kabul – a showcase for Afghanistan’s 4,000 years of cultural heritage. During the years of conflict and political uncertainty, the museum was badly bombed and looted. In 2003, however, the Afghan government was able to confirm that the most important museum collections, hidden away for decades, were safe.

Restoration continues and great efforts are being made to promote and safeguard Afghanistan’s heritage. The work includes identifying and returning pieces that were thought lost. The ivory plaques displayed are among the most important of these items to be recovered. They belong with the furniture decorations displayed earlier in the exhibition from the palace storerooms at Begram. They were traced last year, have been newly conserved and are ready to be returned to the National Museum in Kabul.

This new work has created a great opportunity to study in detail pieces that have never been scientifically examined before. The research reveals how they were made and how they might once have appeared. Conservators at the British Museum have reconstructed details of the plaques showing how they were once highly coloured with red vermilion and indigo blue. This is some of the earliest evidence for the use of these pigments in Afghanistan.

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Classroom activities

The following is a selection of possible activities you might use in connection with the exhibition. Some may be more suitable for before the visit, some for after. In some cases, for example, the poster-design project, you may need to set up the activity with the students before their visit so they can keep it in mind when they see the exhibition and you can then follow up more easily afterwards.

n Use atlases or online maps to locate Afghanistan. Show them its position in relationship to countries to east and west.

n Show the students photos of the landscape of Afghanistan. Get them to discuss what it must be like to live there and why it is such a challenging terrain in which to fight a war.

n Share the presentation of objects from the exhibition with the students. Discuss which they are looking forward to seeing and why. Ask them to think how big the objects will be in real life – don’t tell them, but many of the objects are very small – it will be fascinating for the students to find this out when they actually visit.

n Ask the students to imagine they have been asked to design a poster for the newly reopened National Museum in Kabul. They have to present two possible poster designs to the Director of the museum. Get them to discuss based on their visit to the exhibition what messages they think the Director might want the poster to communicate about the museum. They can use images from the website and the presentation to draft designs.

n Objects in the exhibition or raw materials used for objects come from or through the following places:

Rome

China

India

Turkmenistan

Eastern Siberia

Pakistan

Iran

Turkey

River Oxus

Egypt

Iraq

Greece

Red Sea

Syria

Indian Ocean

Persian Gulf

Ask the students to locate these and create a class map showing where they are.

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n Use the reconstruction drawings of two women buried in Tombs i and iv(in the presentation). Discuss why it is difficult to know exactly how they looked due to the rotting away of the textiles and archaeologists’ ideas of what style of dress the people wore.

n Ask the students to research examples of personal adornment from other traditions. Identify first the different sorts of adornment: headwear, earrings, necklaces, bracelets etc and also hairstyles and clothes. Discuss why we are able to learn more about, for example, styles of earring than we are about hairstyles. Consider with the children how we might learn about hair, fabrics and make-up from images of people from the past.

n Students could investigate other traditional forms of dress that make use of valuable metals or coins. There are great examples from Oman and the Balkans currently on display at the British Museum, but images of costume from these areas can easily be found on the internet.

n Students could use individual shapes and motifs from objects in the exhibition to create patterns that could be printed or cut out and appliquéd to textiles.

n Ask students to research selected modern nomadic cultures in Central Asia and in other parts of the world such as north Africa, north America and Arabia. They could make lists of what these peoples have in common and how they have coped with different environmental conditions. They could consider the priorities for peoples who travel that belongings are easy to transport and that everyone in the community does their share. Ask them to consider why nomads might choose to demonstrate their wealth through things they wear rather than through other methods more typical of settlements.

n Nomads need things to be easy to carry and the magnificent gold crown in the exhibition can actually be taken apart and stored flat when not in use. As a design and technology or art and design project you could ask students to design collapsible versions of different objects.

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n Big questions you could ask the students to think about as they go round might include:

What impression of ancient Afghanistan do you get from the exhibition?

What sorts of people does the exhibition provide evidence about? What people do we not learn about and why might that be?

Do the artefacts remind you of any other artefacts you have seen in museums or on TV or in books or on the internet?

What are the two most important things you have learned from this exhibition?

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Adult helpers: briefing sheet

It is recommended that you:

n help students find their way through the sections of the exhibition

n encourage students to discuss what they see and share their ideas and observations

n encourage students to enjoy the visual experience of the exhibition

n respond to what students find interesting

n draw their attention to things they may have missed

Introductory film

Afghanistan has been an area through which traders have moved and over which people have fought wars. The exhibition looks at four great archaeological discoveries. The treasures were saved through the bravery of Afghan museum staff.

room 1: Tepe fullol. Afghanistan has had rich cultures for thousands of years

These treasures, from 4,000 years ago, were the first signs of a previously unknown and wealthy civilisation in the region.

room 2: Ai Khanum. Ancient greek culture reached Afghanistan

Ai Khanum had many features of a typical Greek city: a theatre, a gymnasium, Greek columns and statues of Greek gods. Encourage students to watch the video.

room 3: Begram. Afghanistan benefited from trade to the west and to the east

These were luxury items imported from China, India and the Roman Empire. They may have belonged to merchants trading along the Silk Road or were the treasures of the region’s royal family, hidden 2,000 years ago and never recovered.

room 4: Tillya Tepe (the Hill of gold). The nomadic peoples of Afghanistan were sophisticated and wealthy

Six graves of nomads buried in the 1st century AD contained the wealth they carried to the afterlife – over 20,000 objects of gold and semi-precious stones.

National Museum of Afghanistan. great efforts are being made to protect the heritage of Afghanistan

During the years of conflict the museum was bombed and looted. In 2003, the Afghan government was able to confirm that the most important museum collections were safe. Experts at the British Museum have been working on these ivory plaques which are now ready to go back to Kabul.

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Exhibition activity sheets

These activity sheets are for students to use in the exhibition and you are free to use them as you think best for your students. It is probably not a good idea to ask your students to do all the sheets.

It is recommended that you use them as follows:

n Divide your group into 3 sub-groups and assign each sub-group an Enquiry Zone: Ai Khanum, Begram or Tillya Tepe.

n Give all students a copy of the first sheet (information and Enquiry Zone: Tepe Fullol.

n Give students in each sub-group the relevant Enquiry Zone sheet.

n Stress to students that they should enjoy the whole exhibition and not just focus on the Enquiry Zone that has been assigned to them.

n A sheet is available in this pack to support adult helpers – see page 15.

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INTrOdUCTION

The wonderful treasures you are going to see were kept safe from war by people who work in the national museum in Afghanistan.

Watch the short film.

What is Afghanistan like?

n jungles n mountains n islands n deserts

n farmland n forests n valleys

What animals can you see being used for travelling in Afghanistan?

How do you think the museum workers felt when they saw the treasures again?

eNqUIrY zONe: TePe fUllOl

Look at the pieces of two bowls and the drinking cup. They were found by Afghan farmers. What are they made of?

n silver n bronze n pottery n glass n gold

Look at the timeline and find when the objects from Tepe Fullol date from.

n 100 BC n 1000 BC n 2000 BC n 3000 BC

Think about how the Afghan farmers felt when they found these objects. Think about how the archaeologists felt when they found out the objects were so old.

As you go through the exhibition, enjoy looking at all the wonderful objects. Keep your eyes open for the following materials:

n gold n glass n painted glass n ivory

n turquoise (a greeny blue stone) n stone

n bronze (a metal that sometimes looks a bit green)

n clay n garnets (red stones) n white plaster

when you reach your own enquiry zone, you will have special things to look for.

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eNqUIrY zONe: AI KHANUM

The Greek king Alexander the Great conquered a huge empire that reached as far as India. One of Alexander’s generals founded the city of Ai Khanum. Ai Khanum was more than 4,000km from Greece, but still had many Greek features.

Here are photos of six objects from other parts of the Greek world.

Try to fi nd objects from Ai Khanum that are like them.

Remember to watch the video of the city.The top of a

Corinthian column

n

Carving of a theatre mask

n

A statue of Herakles with

his club

n

The head of a statue

n

Part of the roof of a temple

n

Greek writing

n

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eNqUIrY zONe: BegrAM

The objects come from a storeroom in a royal palace at Begram. Some of them are from the east (from India and China) and some of the objects are from the west (from Greece, Rome and Egypt).

Here are photos of seven objects from east and west of Afghanistan.

Try to fi nd objects from Begram that are like them.

Remember to watch the video about the ivory seat.A wine jug from

Greece

n

A drinking horn from Persia

n

A glass fi sh from Egypt

n

A glass bowl from Rome

n

A carving from India

n

A mermaid fi gure from India

n

A bronze fi gure from Greece

n

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eNqUIrY zONe: TIllYA TePe

The objects come from six tombs found in a mound of earth.

Look around: why do you think archaeologists called the mound the Hill of Gold?

Below are drawings of what four of the people buried in the tombs may have looked like and photos of four objects.

Find out who was buried in which tomb.

Work out which object was buried with which person.Put the numbers in the boxes.

Tomb IV is the odd one out. Why?

Which of the tombs do you think is the most interesting? Discuss in your group why you found it most interesting.

Put the numbers in the boxes.

Buried in Tomb

Buried in Tomb

Buried in Tomb

Buried in Tomb

Buried in Tomb

Buried in Tomb

Buried in Tomb

Buried in Tomb

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Other resources

gAllerIeS

You will find objects from the Persian empire in Room 52. These include gold artefacts found near the Oxus River.

In Room 22 you will find Greek objects from the period of Alexander the Great.

BOOKS

For a selection of books on Afghanistan, visit the Museum’s shops or britishmuseum.org/shop

Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient world

Edited by Fredrick Hiebert and Pierre Cambon

A fully illustrated catalogue to the exhibition.

Indian Ivories from Afghanistan

St John Simpson

This book features stunning images of the ivories as they would originally have appeared – in full colour, as remaining minute traces of pigment indicate.

fabric folios: embroidery from Afghanistan

Sheila Paine

This book introduces and explores textiles from Afghanistan from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the remarkable embroidery of surrounding regions, reflecting the nomadic heritage of the area.

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