َAfghanistan Arts & Crafts

 Afghanistan has an historic background in the field of decorative art. Stonework art was common during the Greco- Bactrian period,2,200 years ago, and later technological  advances led to its machine-based production. Wood carving and jewelry art are prevalent in Afghan art and have roots to the Nooristan region.A celebrated example is the collection of the remaining jewels from Tela Tapa that date back to 2,000 years. Ceramic and monumental paintings are also celebrated art forms that are demonstrated through ancient minarets and buildings, the Herat Blue Mosque, calligraphy, book binding, textile, and glassware, which has origins to second century AD Begram. Glassware art later flourished during the Timurid Empire in the city of Herat, where glasswaremaking workshops are a popular tourist attraction. Leather work can be found in Kabul with its many leather-goods shops, embroidered work is popular in Kandahar province, which specializes in embroidered clothes, and Afghanistan’s rug and carpet weaving date back to the fifth century AD.

Precious Gems & Stones

Afghanistan's rugged Hindu Kush mountain range and the region's fierce indigenous inhabitants, the Chitral and Nooristani Kafir, contribute dual-enigmatic and foreboding elements that create a natural fortress of defense for the landscape’s treasure-trove of underexploited minerals. The rough  countryside is home to a wide range of precious gemstones,such as aquamarine, emerald, garnet, kunzite, lapis lazuli, ruby, sapphire, tourmaline, turquoise, and zircon.

Lapis Lazuli

Gemstone mining in Afghanistan dates back 6,500 years to the gem mines of its northeastern region in the Badakhshan province and the Panjshir, “Five Lions,” valley.

The Kokcha valley’s Sar-e-Sang mines produced lapis lazuli, one of the first gems to be extracted rom the region and widely regarded as the world's premier source in terms of quantity and quality value.

Its name derives from the Latin word “lapis,” meaning stone and the Persian word “lazhward,”

meaning blue. It is used to make beads and boxes and is popularly used for men's jewelry.

It is mined in Blue Mountain on the right bank of the Kokcha River.

The mines sit at over 11,000 feet on the mountain, and because of the cold temperatures, they are worked in between June and September.

Ruby

The ruby, the “king of precious stones,” is mined in Kabul province’s Jegdalek-Gandamak, which contains rubies ranging from nearly colorless to a deep red, and often purplish.

The Jegdalek mines have been home to ruby, as well as sapphire mining in Afghanistan for over seven hundred years and are located in a remote and inaccessible region, 100 kilometers east of Kabul and south of Jalalabad.

Of the production in the mines, 75% is in the form of pink to violet-pink sapphire, rubies account for 15%, and blue sapphire is responsible for 10%. Much of the region's gem production is transported

through the Khyber Pass to dealers in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Emerald

A precious form of beryl is found in the Parwan province’s Panjshir valley, which based its wealth on silver during the Middle Ages and craters caused by Soviet bombing. A precious form of beryl is found in the Panjshir valley of the Parwan province. The valley based its wealth on silver during the Middle Ages and turned to emerald in the late 20th century after it was discovered in the craters  aused by Soviet bombing. According to local history, a young shepherd found the deposits in the

early 1970s, although Pliny's Natural History states that “smaragus,” which means green stones,

were found in the region in the first centu AD.

Housing

 and Wood Carving Outside the cities, Afghan housing continues in the form of traditional dwellings fabricated according to their regional variation made from stone, wood, unbaked clay, or mud with straw plaster. In the rugged mountainous regions, such houses are built in tiers, with the roof of tne house forming the yard of another, in order to conserve the flat, fertile river valley land for farming.

The inner courtyards of these houses provide an outside space and view with maximum privacy and are frequently decorated with handcarved walnut wood eaves and panels.

Hand-carved doors and window frames and wall and ceiling plaster incised and painted with flowers, pictures, or depictions of daily life may be found in many areas.

In Kabul, such decorative wood carving is done by professionals and by few apprentices and is at risk of dying out.

The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) commissioned some instrument makers to do domestic architecture restoration work.

More on Arts & Crafts

Artistic activity in Afghanistan can be traced back to early 1800 BC. In the Islamic era, the Ghaznavid rulers of the 10th – 12th centuries and the Ghorids of the 12th – 13th centuries fostered artistic development. Continuing through the Timurid dynasty, Afghanistan’s cultural life prospered through the rulers’ high regard for artists and learning. The descendants of Timur turned the city of Herat into a center of cultural activity, enticing artists such as Abdul Rahman Jami, Abdulhay, and Kamal-uddin Bihzad to create finely illustrated books and exquisite buildings.

One of the most famous local arts is the Gandhara art of the 1st - 7th centuries, which is based on Greco-Buddhist art. Since the 1900s, Afghanistan began to use Western techniques in art, and while the country’s art was originally done by men only, recently in theater arts, women have begun to take center stage.

National art is largely centered at the Kabul Museum. Other well known art forms in Afghanistan are music, poetry, and the enturies-old carpet-making.

Calligraphy

In the absence of figural motifs, calligraphy became the most important element of decoration next to the geometrical ornamentation and used various techniques and styles.

The angular, geometric Kufic script, which is named after the Iraqi city of Kufa, was well suited for monumental patterns and large, ong surfaces. The early austere Kufic developed into more decorative floral, foliated and plaited varieties. An angular version developed in Herat, became known as Herati Kufic. The first cursive scripts used in manuscripts also made their appearance in

architecture, and their main types were the naskhi and the thulth.

Timur, also known as Tamerlane, the founder of the Timurid dynasty who con-quered most of the old Sassanid Empire, India and Central Asia, had a high regard for men of learning, artists and artisans. He encouraged many such men in the conquered lands and dispatched them to his capital in Samarkand, where he had elegant buildings erected. After Timur's death in 1405, his son, Shahrukh inherited most of the land of Persia and set up his capital in Herat, which , became the greatest center of cultural activity for the arts, literature, and architecture during the 100-year Timurid rule. His sons were major patrons of the fine arts in Herat, Fars, and Samarkand, and he appointed Baysunghur to the governorship of Herat, where his son established an important atelier for the production of finely illustrated books and art works for buildings.

 He gathered the best artists and calligraphers in his atelier, called Kitabkhana, and employed 200 artists, including 40  master calligraphers. A report by the head of the Kitabkhana, Ja'far Tabrizi, dating back to around 1433, is indicative of the atelier's activities: book production and designs for decorating tents, saddles,  and buildings. The illustrated books produced by this atelier rank were among the finest and include the famous Shahnameh, known as Baysunghur Shahnameh, which was completed in 1430.

The books were worked on by the famous artists Abdulhay, Mir Khalili and Pir Ahmad, who were sent to Samarkand by Timur. Baysunghur further attracted other master artists to his atelier in Herat; the books produced there are kept in various libraries and museums in Iran, Turkey, Europe, and America.

Art of Book and Miniature Painting

In the late 15th century, under the long and stable rule of Sultan Husayn Bayqara, arts and culture flourished further and Herat became a renowned center of excellence. Many famous artists, literati, builders, and musicians flocked to the city.

The sultan and his able Vizir, Amir Ali Shir, generously patronized these men, and in the last quarter of the 15th century, many able painters, including Kamale-Din Bihzad, the greatest master of Persian painting, were active in the production of superb illustrated books.

In the cultural atmosphere of Herat, Bihzad flourished as both a superbly talented painter and a master of spiritual learning.

He went beyond the visual appeal of painting to the deeper meaning of reflecting the text that he  as illustrating, and thus, achieved a particular mastery in depicting spiritual or Sufi nar-ratives.

Supreme in his design, coloring, and fineness of brushwork, Bihzad gave a dynamic and naturalistic touch to his paintings, which are unique in Islamic painting. He produced a renowned illustrated versions of Nizami's Khamse, “the Quintet,” and of some legendary classical Persian literature,

such as Amir Khosrau Dehlavi's Hasht Bihisht, “Eight Paradises.”

Monumental Painting

The 11th century-arrival of glaze introduced color coating for building surfaces. Glaze was made of cobalt, sulphur, arsenic, and various metal oxides. At first, glazed bricks were used for inscriptions and epigraphic friezes to decorate the mihrab niche and entrance gate, and from the 14th century onwards, the use of color became wide spread.

The first colors were white, turquoise and blue. The 15th century buildings, such as the Green  Mosque in Balkh and the Shrine of Gazargah and the Mausoleum of Gawhar Shad in Herat, mark the peak of this technique. Rare cases of wall painting were found in the form of frescoes in the palace of Ashkari Bazaar. Wall painting became more frequent after the 17th century and was used in parts of Gazargah and Takht-i-Pul. They employed a wide range of ornamental motifs that divide into

two categories, geometrical and floral/ vegetal. Also, some Chinese motifs, such as clouds and dragons – can be found on wall paintings.

Ceramics

Ceramic production in Afghanistan followed the traditions of neighboring Central Asian lands, the Iranian plateau, and the Indus valley. Traces of prehistoric pottery were found in Mundigak, a crossroads of trade routs near Kandahar.

Some earthen wares, goblets, and beakers depicting geometric or animal decoration in black or brown on a lighter ground recall the early ceramics of Quetta and Kulliin, Pakistan as well as those of Susa in the 3rd millennium BC. South of the upper Oxus valley, the Greco-Bactrian site of Ai Khanoum of the late 4th century - 145 BC produced numerous shards that were gathered into three main groups: Persian wares of the Achaemenian period, which carry white and red slip decoration and some New Greek shapes of fish dishes and craters; wares of Greece and Asia Minor, which have a dark grey body and a black slip for small and large ewers, dishes, and bowls; and a third group, in

which new and large dishes have a black or white slip and ewers have handles decorated with a female head.

The use of glaze appeared with the 10^th century-arrival of the Islamic period, when slip-painting and sgraffito techniques began to enhance dishes, bowls, and pourers. The motifs ranged from complex

squares and "s" shapes to pseudo-Kufic lines.

As done in neighboring lands since the12th century, monuments were enhanced by glazed brick decoration.

A famous example of the ornamentation done in turquoise stands high on the minaret of Jam, which was erected in 1193-94. During the rule of the Timurids in the 15th century, a series of monuments

were erected in Herat, such as the tomb of Musalla of Gawhar Shad, the forceful wife of Shahrukh.

The tomb’s outer walls are covered in the bannai technique, in which white, blue, turquoise, and black glazed bricks are geometrically patterned within plain bricks.

In the village of Istalif near Kabul, the folk potters produced attractive yet haphazard turquoise glazed wares, which attracted visitors in between wartime and included four-legged beasts, farm animals, figurines, bowls, and dishes.

Rugs & Carpets

 Afghanistan’s leading producers of carpets and rugs are the Turkomans. Although they are sedentary people, they were originally nomads, herding flocks of sheep and goats across the rolling steppes of Central Asia, and they lived in yurts, circular domed tents seen from outer Mongolia to the Caspian Sea.

In this self-sufficient and ovine-based economy, wool was and is used extensively.

Besides carpets and rugs, the Turkomans produced countless items made from wool for yurt furnishings and daily domestic needs.

This was done because of wood and metals’ transportation and acquirement difficulties and the materials’ inflexibility.

In yurts, the specially woven Purdah carpet, which is recognizable by its cross design that divides it into four different panels, hangs from the upper corners and acts as an entrance door. Having no

furniture, the nomads stored their clothes and household possessions in special, handmade woven and knotted bags.

The Turkoman carpet designs are reputable for being woven entirely from memory; graph paper patterns are used when resuscitating old designs or weav- ing new or unfamiliar designs. Originally, the patterns and designs used would very clearly signify the tribe and clan that wove the carpet.

The width of the carpet being woven determines the number of weavers needed.

A carpet starts and ends in a band of flat weave called the Kilim. In its various versions, the Kilim displays a design, is made up of lateral bands of color, is embroidered, or is dyed.

The vast majority of Turkoman weavers are women and girls though among the Turkomans, and especially among the Uzbeks, there is an increasing number of boys and youth who are learning this craft. They are usually unmarried, since the responsibilities of marriage force them to abandon this means of livelihood.

Afghan Embroidery

Afghanistan is a land of harsh steppes and mountain valleys crisscrossed by irrigation channels

sparkling in the sun. In this arid landscape the embroideries of Afghan women glow with bright exotic flowers. Afghanistan’s embroidery is done by women and young girls in the privacy of their homes as they decorate fabrics with threads of gold, silver, silk, and wool.