Today’s Enlightening Entertainment will be presented in Dari, English, French, and German, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

Welcome, art-loving viewers. Today present the first of a three part series about a very special exhibition that represents the rich cultural heritage of Afghanistan. Throughout history, Afghanistan has been connected with other peoples and cultures, such as from China, India and the Mediterranean world.

Afghan culture and art have been enriched by intercultural exchange; just as well, others have been enriched by all that Afghanistan offered. The exhibition, “Afghanistan: Surviving Treasures,” includes legendary treasures from the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul.

The exhibit centers around artifacts from four different sites – Tepe Fullol, Ai Khanum, Tilly Tepe, and Begram. Thousands of years old, yet still revealing the finesse of their craftsmanship, they hold an incalculable artistic, cultural and historical value. These fine works of art are currently on display in Germany at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn.

Just before the presentation in Bonn, they have been shown in the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineu, Quebec. The Deputy Minister of Information and Culture of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, His Excellency Omar S. Sultan, spoke about this treasure trove exhibit during its opening ceremony in Bonn, Germany:

Look at these precious objects from different parts of Afghanistan, with different cultural integrity. For instance, you would see objects from Tepe Fullol, which are more than 4,000 years old, but [maintains] cultural integrity of the great civilization of Mesopotamia. You will see the objects from Ai Khanum, which show the strong civilized integration from classical Greek civilization.

You will see the treasures from Begram and Tillya Tepe, with culture influenced from integration of ancient China, India, Persia, Siberia, Greece and Rome. Let me conclude by expressing my hope that you will enjoy seeing these objects as much as we Afghans do. Thank you very much.

Working as an archaeologist for the National Geographic Society, Dr. Fredrik Hiebert, who was also the curator of the exhibition in Quebec, Canada, said: I want everybody who sees this exhibition to know that it’s just as much about modern Afghanistan as it is about ancient Afghanistan. To have that character, to save one’s own past, it’s really important.

The curator of the exhibition in Bonn, Mr. Pierre Cambon of Musée Guimet in Paris, shared the following:

What connects the various components together, in fact, first of all, these are the pieces that have been safely kept in the safes of the National Bank in 1989. These are the famous hidden treasures, the Bactrian gold, and the most beautiful pieces of the galleries of the National Museum of Kabul.

This being Ai Khanoun, Tillya Tepe, Begram, d'Afghanistan en faitBegram, they are in fact the beginning of the history of Afghanistan when it belonged to the classical world of Alexander the Great. So these are the beginnings of Afghan history, before the Buddhist period, before the birth of this Greco-Buddhist art but moreover, if we take Tepe Fullol as prologue, Tepe Fullol is a site that refers to the prehistory, the second millennium before Jesus Christ.

What unifies these different sites is that Afghanistan emerges as a bridge between East and West, between the Mediterranean and the Indian subcontinent, with always, in all the four faces, this opening to Central Asia, to the North, to the aesthete. So there are several ways to interpret the exhibition and the different approaches are by definition the same.

Gentle viewers, we will be right back after these brief messages. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

So we have to get the message out there. We have to tell the story of the beauty and the wonder of Afghanistan’s past. It’s their heritage.

The oldest pieces of the exhibition are the golden vessels from Tepe Fullol. They date back to the late Bronze Age between 2200-1900 BC. We find two bowls and a goblet. The golden bowls show a depiction of animals, namely a wild boar and a bull, and ornaments. In their style, they refer to Mesopotamia and also the Indus culture. The director of the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul, Mr. Omar Khan Massoudi, shared the following:

I think this is really important, all of them, especially from a historical point of view, it'll be, if we pay attention to the artifacts from Tepe Fullol, which belongs to Bronze Age. They date more than 4,000 years ago.

Another part of the exhibition is dedicated to Ai Khanum. The artworks here are of Greek influence. Ai Khanum was a town founded by Seleucus, one of Alexander the Great’s former commanders in 232 BC. One may refer to it as the most eastern point of the Greek world. Professor Nazar Mohammad Azizi, Director General for Kushan-Research, spoke about the meaning of Ai Khanum:

Then we had many precious things and buildings of Greek culture and civilisation. For example, we have a famous site, that is called Ai Khanum. Ai Khanum is an Uzbek language of ours in northern Afghanistan. It means Lady Moon. Lady Moon – that is Ai Khanum. Ai Khanum is like an Alexandria. If you go and look in historical records, you will find that this is an Oxus Alexandria (city of ancient Greco-Bactrian kingdom).

Oxus Alexandria. On this place there are many buildings, different artistic creations. For example, the Corinthian capitals and columns, and also palaces of the Greek, amphitheatres for example; also many walls that have been called walls of the citadel. And moreover, we have many inscriptions, also as you can see, in Greek language, and Greek inscriptions had been made then.

An impressive piece of art is the so-called Cybele disc from Ai Khanum, 3rd century BC. Cybele, the Greek goddess of nature, is depicted travelling through her beloved mountain domain. Her chariot is drawn by two lions. A winged goddess of victory accompanies her.

Two priests, one of them holding up a large ceremonial parasol and the other burning incense on an altar, mark the edges of the disc. Three celestial bodies are to be seen in the sky: the sun in shape of the sun god Helios, a crescent moon, and a star. The disc is an example of an art that fuses Greek and Oriental motifs. The motif of Cybele on a chariot drawn by lions, is from the Mediterranean area.

The priests’ robes and the big wheeled chariot have their origin in the Orient. Like this piece of art, many pieces have a profound spiritual meaning and reflect the beliefs of the people in their time. His Excellency, Omar S. Sultan, shared the following about spirituality and religion:

In every country, every human being has to believe in something because otherwise your life is not complete. I mean you call him God, I call him God, it is the same God. It is not different. So, with your religion or my religion, religion plays a very important role. But we have to [be] careful how to use the religion to make a common and a beautiful way to the people. At least that’s what I believe, that if you don’t believe in something in your life, then your life is empty.

Dr. Fredrik Hiebert, as curator of the exhibition in Quebec, Canada, explains how the artifacts tell fascinating stories about life in ancient Afghanistan, while offering truly unique creations to the world.

I think that the artifacts that we see from Afghanistan show the true nature of Afghan culture, going all the way back. You look at these artifacts and you wonder how they could be made. They’re so beautiful and some of them are exceedingly tiny and some of them are quite large, and the craftsmanship is remarkable.

If you would think about this country with the high mountains and the vast deserts, you think, “Wow, how could people have made these beautiful objects right there in Afghanistan?” I think it suggests that the Afghan people are very good artisans.

They were inspired by the art of all the cultures around them and yet they took those inspirations and they took those ideas including religious ideas, including artistic ideas, and they put them in their own art. And they created something that I consider to be a unique Afghan form of art.

Asked about his expectation in respect to this exhibition, Mr. Shirazuddin Saifi, Director of the Restoration Department of the Kabul National Museum, shared the following:

My expectation from the exhibition is to broadcast our culture and customs to the world outside. So that the world outside become aware of our culture and tradition…

Friendly viewers, this concludes the first part of our program.

Please join us again tomorrow, August 25.

Now, please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television for Words of Wisdom, after Noteworthy News. May your life be touched by beauty and nobility.

For more information about the “Afghanistan: Surviving Treasures” exhibition in Bonn, Germany lasting through October 3, 2010, please visit

Today’s Enlightening Entertainment will be presented in Dari, English, French, and German, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

Welcome, loyal viewers to the continuation of our program about an exhibition that features the Bactrian Gold of Afghanistan. The exhibition, “Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures,” is a selected collection of the National Museum of Afghanistan and is currently on display in Bonn, Germany.

The findings of the excavation site, Tillya Tepe, are some of the most exciting treasures of this exhibition. Tillya Tepe means “golden mound” and dates around the time of Christ’s birth. In 1978-79 Russian archaeologist Victor Sarianidi and his team discovered the more than 20,000 objects mostly made of gold and silver which belonged to nomads.

These finds belong to mid-first century BC, the first century B.C. And these are the finds which were extracted from six burial sites in Sheberghan. And now a small number of them are brought to this exhibition, every one of which owns a different ornamentation.

The treasures of Tillya Tepe reveal the close connection that the nomadic people had with Greece, Rome, China and southern Russia.

All of a sudden you look at this gold and say, “Oh, my goodness, it’s a mix of East and West.” And that’s what you see in these collections: true art. As we go through the collections, you’ll see many amazing things. They were wearing these solid gold anklets, and as we studied the inventory in this, we learned things by handling these objects that we could never have learned from looking at photographs of some of these things. Each weighed two and a half pounds a piece.

What we are looking at here is a very interesting economic aspect. This is actually the nomadic banking system. Think about the definition of a nomad, right? Nomads have no houses; thus they have no banks. They carry all their wealth with them. They were, each person, each individual, these six nomads, was wearing about 20 pounds of gold. That is truly an amazing thing.

One of the sophisticated objects of Tillya Tepe is the “Ornament for the neck of a robe.” Intended to be sewn to the neck of a gown, it has small tubes for thread soldered to the reverse of the double crescents.

What pieces do you like most? Can you tell our viewers something about them?

Which pieces? It is difficult to make a selection because there are many beautiful pieces. Perhaps the most spectacular, the most unexpected, is the crown of the famous princess of Tillya Tepe; how it is very floral, very elegant, very pure and at the same time, very special indeed. It is the single crown of this type that has been found, though it evokes another world, even the Far East, as a matter of fact.

Dr. Hiebert was also impressed by the beauty of the crown of the nomadic princess.

We have such a large number of remarkable objects. I look at the exhibition and I try to imagine, what is my favorite object? And every day I have a different object. But let me tell you about a few that I think are truly unique and tell the story of Afghanistan. We have a series of gold objects from northern Afghanistan that are 2,000 years old. And this crown is a wonderful piece of artwork. It has points on the crown that look like trees.

Well, it’s a nomadic crown, so that when it was found they realized that it actually could come apart. You could take the points off the top like trees, and put them in a pouch and fold up the band and you could put it in a pouch. I could just imagine the nomadic princess, who would be wearing the crown and decided to gallop off to some other side, would put her crown in her pouch, gallop off and then put it back on her head. It would be marvelous to see her put her crown back on in the fields of northern Afghanistan.

We’ll continue our exploration of this remarkable exhibit of Afghan art when we return. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Afghanistan was a crossroad for all the civilizations, from the Achaemenid, from Greece, from India, Buddhism, Roman, and of course Islam. In every those facts are one common is the culture. Every one of us has the beauty of it.

Later on they made all these pieces of art with the influence of course from other cultures but also from the local. So you can see in Tillya Tepe, there is an Aphrodite, but that Aphrodite doesn’t look like an Aphrodite of in Greece, the clothes, the face is local.

Welcome back to our feature about the Afghan heritage that is on display around the world in an extraordinary exhibition. We just heard about the treasure of Tillya Tepe, which reveals works of art of incredible beauty and craftsmanship.

And he had these beautiful boot buckles that he was wearing, one on each side of his boots. And I remember these pictures from the National Geographic article, and I remember saying, “Ah, these are Chinese.” Look at them very carefully, you see, on each piece you see a chariot, and there is kind of a Chinese looking guy riding in a chariot, and the chariot is pulled by two dragons. The chariot has a parasol, very typical of the Han Dynasty, So we said, “Check off, this is education of China.”

By the time we saw this piece and actually handled it and turned it over, we realized, “No, this is also made in Afghanistan.” Same Afghan gold, same Afghan turquoise, not just one barrel, but all the barrels, objects were exquisitely made for them in Afghanistan. Here’s another one of my favorite pieces.

There is a “Necklace with a cameo” and it shows a head in profile. The helmet is typical of one worn by Graeco-Bactrian kings. Other beautiful and even more refined necklaces are also displayed. Further, we see a “Small cylindrical lidded box with Greek inscription” and a “Brooch in the form of a five-petalled blossom.” Beautiful pendants and hair ornaments are also to be seen. Often times animals are depicted, like in the “Pair of bracelets in the form of antelopes.”

This is not like King Tut’s gold. These are objects that they wore during life and were interred with when they were buried with it. And what beautiful pieces they are as well. These are hair pieces. And the beauty is they take influences from East and West. This is a famous hairpiece called, “The Dragon Master.” You see it, there’s a man holding back two dragons. And, it’s from ancient Near East.

Professor Nazar Mohammad Azizi told us about one special bowl that had been found.

And especially in Tellya Tepe of course there are some objects very special, with the influence of the Greek… For example, we have a golden bowl from Tillya Tepe in this exhibition. On the brim of this bowl there is written: CTA MA. CTA MA is a, like you say, a kind of weight in Greece. For example 1 kilogram, 2 kilogram or a half kilogram. CTA MA is not the name of the artist, but instead a measure of weight. And that is very precious.

This golden belt consists of eight sections of a flexible band of braided gold chains. Between the gold chains there are nine medallions. All nine medallions show the same image: someone sitting on the back of a panther with a bowl in his hands. But the reliefs vary in detail from medallion to medallion. Each was made separately and then soldered on. This belt, unlike others that have been found, belonged to royal authority.

Afghanistan is a very rich culture and very rich country because of its natural resources. It’s a country that has high mountains and vast deserts, and in between the mountains and the deserts they have minerals and they have wonderful places for farming. It’s an area of natural richness that has attracted people for literally centuries. They export all sorts of items from Afghanistan in the past, as today.

From very earliest times, people have been interested in the minerals of Afghanistan. Northern Afghanistan for example, is one of the only known locations of the beautiful blue stone Lapis Lazuli. It was exported far and wide. It was exported all the way to Egypt thousands of years ago, and it was exported in very large quantities so that even the Great Mask of King Tutankhamun was covered in the stones from Afghanistan. That’s just one example.

Of course, it was rich in so many other minerals and metals as well. It has that native wealth. It also had enough agricultural potential and so many resources that in the past, many great cities grew and the population of Afghanistan was quite large 4,000 years ago, 3,000 years ago, 2,000 years ago.

I am very happy to organize this kind of exhibition. Most of people showed their interest, from the beginning of this exhibition in five countries, like France, Italy, Netherlands, United States, Canada. Many people will have visited that exhibition, even more than one million people. This is a key of cultural activities that as you know now are the way to the globalization.

I think that the world is too small. It is really important to have very close cooperation together. Organizing of this kind of exhibition is really important, that people have to know about the past of our race, country, and also they can compare.

We always wish our activities to always exist with other countries as well, and theirs with us. We always carry this hope and desire that cultures go together step by step. Which (archeological) finds do you love the most? I… All of our finds are infinitely valuable to us, we don’t differentiate between them. Whatever culture in which work has been done is very invaluable.

Thank you for your company today. Next week, on Tuesday, August 31, we will continue the last of our 3-part program. Now, please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television for Words of Wisdom, after Noteworthy News. May art bring us closer together.

Thank you for your company today. Next week, on Tuesday, August 31, we will continue the last of our 3-part program. Now, please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television for Words of Wisdom, after Noteworthy News. May art bring us closer together.

For more information about the “Afghanistan: Surviving Treasures” exhibition in Bonn, Germany lasting through October 3, 2010, please visit

Standing on the roof of the world, Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, one can seem to touch the clear sky and hear above the clouds. Here is the traditional residence of the Dalai Lamas: the Potala Palace.

Find out about this sacred Tibetan Buddhist site, Sunday, August 29 on Supreme Master Television’s The World Around Us.

Today’s Enlightening Entertainment will be presented in Dari, English, French, and German, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

Welcome, beauty loving viewers to the final part of our 3-part program about the Bactrian gold of Afghanistan and other incredible works of art that are on display for the world to admire. “Afghanistan: Surviving Treasures,” includes legendary treasures from the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul and has been exhibited most recently in Bonn, Germany.

A testimony of various cultures that met in Afghanistan can be found in the collection known as the “Begram Treasure.” The Begram Treasure dates to the 1st and early 2nd century AD and gives insight into the early history of Afghanistan’s northern region, the Hindu Kush. An important part of this treasure is the glassware, bronze pieces, and stucco medallions.

That painted goblet that I showed you, beautiful. It actually has scenes of Egyptian life on it, the Egyptian Nile. And the chemical analysis of the glass proves that that piece of glass, which was one of many, was actually made in Alexandra in Egypt. Lacquered bowls from China, glass that probably came by sea to India and then were trans-shipped up to Begram, and whereto after that we certainly don’t know.

Some of the glass vessels were made of colorless glass while others were of transparent blue glass. This glassware may be regarded as the oldest surviving examples of Greek-Roman glass art. There are even fish-shaped flasks. An interesting object is the “Jug in the shape of a kinnari.” A kinnari in Indian mythology is a hybrid being, part woman, part bird, and the traditional ideal of female beauty and grace.

Glass was something that was a very interesting trade commodity to China. So, this would have been a major portal for that. And the type of goods that we have in that merchant’s warehouse, and you’ll see them in that exhibition, very small glasses, very fine pieces, these were all sort of sumptuous pieces. Because when you’re trading things so far, you want to trade the most valuable things.

One special piece is the so called “Round basin decorated with fish.”

There was one piece that was mysterious to us. We didn’t know exactly what it is. It’s a tray made out of bronze about 20 centimeters in diameter decorated with fish, fish swimming all the way around, and the fish have fins that wiggle if you move it. You could pour water on it and the fish’s fins move back and forth. It must have simply been an amusement for people 2,000 years ago, a sort of a game for them to enjoy and to look at. And I think about, isn’t that interesting people have been amused by games even 2,000 years ago.

Remarkably, during the restoration of that bronze piece, an extraordinary, hardly visible multicolor painting was discovered on the surface. There has been no other example of an ancient color-painted bronze in the whole world up till now. Part of the Begram finds are also some plaster casts. They depict mainly mythological subjects, but also other Hellenistic images.

The plaster casts served as drafts for artists or as examples for potential buyers, perhaps even both. The “Medallion, depicting Endymion asleep” shows Endymion, king of Elis, visited by Selene accompanied by Eros. Another depiction of a mythological scene is the medallion, “Ganymede and the eagle of Zeus.”

The treasures that are shown to the world in this exhibition are invaluable, not only for the Afghan people but for the whole world. They have been kept during difficult times in some safes in the Afghan Central Bank thanks to the heroic efforts of the staff of the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul. Dr. Hiebert recalled the moment when it was clear that the treasure was safe.

The expression on the faces of all those Afghans changed, when all of a sudden they realized, they themselves had saved their own national treasures. It was a glorious moment. It was the moment that all to Afghanistan had been waiting for, it’s amazing. So I want to show you some of these objects, obviously you can see them upstairs, but there are some things that you should know about these. These are exceptional objects.

After it was known that the works of art still existed and were safe, the idea emerged to present this exhibition to the world. But first, a lot of work had to be done. Mr. Pierre Cambon, chief curator of Museé Guimet in Paris, France recalls:

The mounting was done in Paris within a very short time, restoration, catalog, installation. At the same time, the exhibition was an opportunity to restore some items of the Kabul Museum, to analyze the stones of Tillya Tepe. So actually, the exhibition shows that paradoxically, the most fragile objects, the most valuable, most delicate pieces can survive, and moreover, gradually, step by step, we can rebuild.

Finally now, I think the exhibition, the project which from the beginning has been supported at the highest level in Afghanistan, shows that things are possible; that the cultural dimension is really important in itself, for the foreigner and for the country itself, and it is possible to rebuild, to build the future.

The artifacts of this exhibition represent a special kind of mélange of art from East and West and more, while also reflecting the individual style of Afghan artisans and artists.

What I want to see and get help from all these friendly nations all around the world, to help us to rebuild our culture. This way we would like to give a culture awareness to the people of Afghanistan, bring kids, children to the museum, explain their cultural heritage. So it has an effect of bringing peace and have the people with you.

So without cooperation of the people you can’t do anything. So this way I’m hoping to unite people and have their actual contribution to culture, and just explain it to them, that this beautiful culture is belongs to you. It is for the Afghan people.

We’ll continue our exploration of this remarkable exhibit of Afghan art when we return. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

Welcome back to our program about Afghanistan’s treasures, a selected collection from the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul that has amazed people around the world. As it reads at the entrance of the exhibition in Kabul, “A nation stays alive, when its culture stays alive.”

I think the exhibition is actually a nice testimony of that, art is an important dimension in life, in fact, in the past as well as in the present time. Forgetting culture would be a loss of this dimension that in fact makes our life more human. And art is also heritage, a tradition. It is also a cultural identity.

I think this dimension is truly important as a matter of fact. But the exhibition by itself shows that already in our past, whether it’s in Begram where the pieces were imported, or in Tillya Tepe where it involves locally made pieces, in fact typical of the art styles of the East, art is a natural part of everyday life.

Next, Mr. Omar Khan Massoudi, director of the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul, talked about the work of archaeologists and historians and what meaning their work has for us.

This is the best way, this is the best documentation, which they put it in front of the historian, because the historian always writes it down to find the truth of the social society. These artifacts can put a green light about the each part of the economical point, and also social life, and also about the religious point of view, etc.

But let me tell you one thing, that without the help of the Parliament of Afghanistan, without the heroic team of the archaeological committee, this exhibition here and in the rest of the world was not possible. They have worked together. We would like to share this with the whole world, that we are giving it out of a culture of tolerance to a culture of peace.

Afghanistan with its cultural artifacts is a testimony about transcending borders and strengthening a constructive identity. His Excellency Omar S. Sultan, Deputy Minister of Cultural Affairs of Afghanistan, shared:

I believe culture and art is going to unite back the Afghans and they will find their identity, because, don’t forget this, Afghanistan is very, very, very proud of their cultural heritage. So I believe that’s something that we can do, unite back through art, through culture, unite them.

In organizing this exhibition, many nations worked together hand in hand to bring this treasure to the worldwide audience. They have a shared dream: humankind in peace and harmony.

And I always hope, our culture, our civilization makes connections between our country and all countries, because the artifacts do not belong to Afghanistan alone, but instead those artifacts are for all countries in the world. That is very important.

My message to all humankind, particularly on the issue of protection of cultural assets of nations, is that they need to have contiguous relationships. They should attempt to protect and save cultural assets. The world is tied to one another as a civilizational circle.

May we appreciate all the marvelous treasures of Afghanistan as we also become more aware of our world’s interconnectedness and kinship through this special exhibition. We thank all people and organizations involved in protecting and presenting these art works to further cultural dialog and exchange, including the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul, the Canadian Museum of Civilization, and The Bundeskunsthalle (Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany).

Our special thanks also go to our interview guests who shared their views and stories: His Excellency Omar S. Sultan, Deputy Minister of Cultural Affairs of Afghanistan; Mr. Omar Khan Massoudi, Director of the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul; Professor Nazar Mohammad Azizi, Director General for Kushan-Research, Afghanistan;
Mr. Shirazuddin Saifi, Director of the Restoration Department of the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul; Mr. Pierre Cambon, chief curator of Musée Guimet in Paris, France; Dr. Robert Fleck, Director of the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany; and Dr. Fredrik Hiebert, archeologist with the National Geographic Society, USA. Through endeavors such as yours, may all the world enjoy beauty, peace, and harmony.

Friendly viewers, thank you for your pleasant company on this program. Now, please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television for Words of Wisdom, after Noteworthy News. Wishing you wonderful discoveries on your inner and outer journeys.

For more information about the “Afghanistan: Surviving Treasures” exhibition in Bonn, Germany lasting through October 3, please visit