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.

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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