A book about the Three Hares

The Three Hares: A Curiosity Worth Regarding

by Tom Greeves (Author), Sue Andrew (Author), Chris Chapman (Author, Photographer), & 4more

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Skerryvore Productions Ltd; Illustrated edition edition (14 Mar. 2016)
• ISBN-10: 0993103928

Running in circles to trace heritage of image steeped in Westcountry folklore

The Herald by Martin Hesp  March 24, 2016

A 25-year quest to find the meaning of the dancing hare motif has culminated in a new book. Martin Hesp reports.

Stories of dancing hares have featured in Westcountry folklore for centuries – and the ancient motif that sees three of the creatures running in a circle is known in countries worldwide.

Now three Dartmoor-based authors have turned their attention to the curious symbol and have written the seminal work that sets out to discover what the ancient design could mean.

Between them it’s taken Tom Greeves, Sue Andrew and Chris Chapman more than a quarter of a century in individual researches to be able to make contributions to the new book called The Three Hares – a Curiosity Worth Regarding.

From 15th-century rural churches located in deepest Devon, to 6th century cave temples on the edge of the Gobi desert in China, the book follows the trail of a mysterious medieval motif which features three hares running in a circle while sharing three ears which form a triangle at the centre of the design.

“It is a paradox,” say the authors. “For although only three ears are depicted, each beast has two.”

The book uncovers a modern Devon myth and also looks at the importance of the Three Hares in the art of Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism. The trail of the three enigmatic creatures even strays into the Islamic world and the great Mongol Empire.

Photographer Chris Chapman said: “The creative spirit which gave form to the Three Hares in the medieval period – and which survived conflict and conquest – manifests itself in modern times and the inspirational work of contemporary craftspeople is presented.”

The book is illustrated with photographs of people and places, and of exquisite, rare and precious artefacts held in private collections. Peter Beacham, former heritage protection director for English Heritage, has called the book a “revelation”.

“What begins as a personal quest of the three authors to discover more about a curious motif found in the medieval roofs of some modest Devon churches, develops into an unexpected odyssey – sustained over decades – which takes them across continents and into many different cultures and faiths,” he says.

“Exploring beyond ever widening horizons as they pursue the extraordinarily diverse manifestations of this humble yet haunting image, their tale is rich in human encounter and cultural discovery, diligently researched, thoughtfully and engagingly told, and beautifully illustrated.”

Former Dartmoor National Park archaeologist Dr Greeves told the WMN: “Hares are not that common on Dartmoor, but I have been fortunate to see them on several occasions, late at night in lanes, or out on the open moor in daylight, sometimes nearly treading on their form.”

He said that as a student his PhD researches at Exeter University focusing on the region’s tin industry had helped first alert him to the mysterious motif.

“In all my reading of documents and conversations, never once did I come across mention of the ‘tinners’ rabbits’. This alerted me to the need to investigate further the symbol we now know as the Three Hares, which I did from the late 1980s onwards.”

Mr Chapman added that the three hares project had also been an important part of his life.

“Photographing the Three Hares motif became a spiritual adventure, one that I always looked forward to. Each example drew us into a hushed environment where for a short time we could forget the bustle of our modern lives.”

The photographer recently revisited the Kloster Haina in Germany, which has an ancient bell famed for its Three Hares motif – and while capturing images of the object Mr Chpman said he’d experienced some kind of spiritual revelation while staring down into “the vastness of the nave”.

“I had no fear, no giddiness, but an uplifting sense of awe at such a wondrous sight,” recalls Mr Chapman. “Through the Three Hares I’ve experienced that sensation again and again in all of the religious houses we have visited. It has been a remarkable journey.”

Sue Andrew explained how she’d been caught up in the enigmatic motif: “In 1991 I saw an image which, although I did not know it then, was to change the course of my life. The image, a black and white photograph of the three hares roof boss at Throwleigh church, by Chris Chapman, stayed with me.

“When I came across a drawing of the same motif while browsing in a bookshop years later, I was reminded of the photograph and wondered if Tom Greeves, whose article Chris’s photograph had illustrated, knew of this particular example.

“By the time I wrote to Tom, I had discovered other examples in Britain – and Tom replied that he was worried that we might find more examples outside Devon than in the county. By now intrigued with the design, I began to explore, through books and articles, occurrences of the three hares in Britain, Continental Europe and the Islamic World,” said Sue.

“Sharing information with Tom, the archive grew until in the year 2000 Tom suggested that, together with Chris Chapman, we should form The Three Hares Project to document and record photographically, where possible, all known examples.”

The book will be launched at Chagford on Friday, April 8, as a run-up event to the Dartmoor Literary Festival 2017 – there will be an illustrated talk by the authors. Tickets £5, to a include a glass of wine. Call 01647 432215 for more details.

For more information, click HERE

Islam and the Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan

13 November 2015

Dr Peter Frankopan talks about Islam and the Silk Roads relating to his recent book entitled The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

Silk Roads and Steppe Roads of Medieval China

Institute for the Study of the  Ancient World, New York

Rostovtzeff Lecture Series: 

Silk Roads and Steppe Roads of  Medieval China: History Unearthed from Tombs, I

Gold Funerary Mask from the Tomb of Shi Daode (613-678) in Guyuan, Ningxia, China; Courtesy of Guyuan Museum.

A Slave Road? Sogdian Merchants and Foreign Slaves at Turfan

Jonathan K. Skaff

ISAW Visiting Research Scholar

Dr. Jonathan Skaff is a Visiting Research Scholar at ISAW who will deliver the annual M.I. Rostovtzeff Lectures in Spring 2016. Skaff is a Professor of History at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, where he also has served as Director of International Studies. He developed a lasting fascination with Eurasian cultural connections after teaching English in Shanghai in the mid-1980s and traveling through northwest China, Pakistan, India, Nepal and Tibet. Since receiving his doctorate from the University of Michigan in 1998, his research has investigated medieval China’s frontier interactions with Inner Asia. Most prominently, his book, Sui-Tang China and its Turko-Mongol Neighbors: Culture, Power and Connections, 580-800(Oxford University Press, 2012) revealed previously unrecognized cultural connections between China and peoples of the Eurasian steppe involving diplomacy, warfare, ideology, and political networking. A Chinese translation is forthcoming from the Social Sciences Academic Press.

Skaff’s Rostovtzeff lectures, entitled Silk Roads and Steppe Roads of Medieval China: History Unearthed from Tombs, comprise four case studies that use paper documents, stone epitaphs and artifacts excavated from tombs to illuminate China’s interactions with Eurasia. “Silk Roads” is the popular name for east-west land routes—linking East, South, and West Asia and serving as conduits transmitting luxury goods, technology, religion, and artistic motifs. “Steppe Roads” is a term coined by David Christian, who defines them as north-south routes linking the Eurasian steppe’s vast pastoral grasslands with the agricultural regions to the south that facilitated exchanges of goods such as Chinese silks and Mongolian horses. The lecture series argues that the Silk and Steppe Roads were networks through which Eurasian peoples, who perceived their societies to be unique, spun overlapping and entangled webs of culture. The transit hubs of Silk and Steppe Roads were particularly active sites of cultural contestation, experimentation, and mutual influence that had an impact on the historical development of China and Inner Asia.

The first lecture entitled "A Slave Road? Sogdian Merchants and Foreign Slaves at Turfan" introduces the Silk Roads through a case study of Sogdians living as a minority at the Chinese oasis city of Turfan in the six and seventh centuries. The Sogdians were early inhabitants of modern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan who spoke an Iranian dialect, and began to migrate eastward by the fourth century CE to settle in cities and towns on the Silk Roads. The lecture will update Skaff's previous publications on Sogdian farmers and merchants at Turfan by considering recently-discovered paper documents and epitaphs.

Admission to lecture closes 10 minutes after scheduled start time.

Please check isaw.nyu.edu for event updates.

Registration is required at isaw.nyu.edu/rsvp

"A Slave Road? Sogdian Merchants and Foreign Slaves at Turfan," 
Tuesday, March 29, 6:00 pm.
http://isaw.nyu.edu/events/rostovtzeff-silk-roads-lecture-1

"Sogdians or Borderlanders?, Part I: Lives Revealed in Epitaphs," 
Tuesday, April 5, 6:00 pm.
http://isaw.nyu.edu/events/rostovtzeff-silk-roads-lecture-2

"Sogdians or Borderlanders?, Part II: Death Rituals Revealed in Tombs," Tuesday, April 12, 6:00 pm.
http://isaw.nyu.edu/events/rostovtzeff-silk-roads-lecture-3

"A Tang Dynasty Ally in War and Ritual: The Tomb of Pugu Yitu (635-678) in Mongolia," Tuesday, April 19, 6:00 pm.
http://isaw.nyu.edu/events/rostovtzeff-silk-roads-lecture-4

Archaeologists Uncover Another Branch of the Silk Road

New evidence suggests the ancient trade route ventured through the heights of Tibet

• Scientific American  by Jane Qiu on April 1, 2016

SOURCE: “EARLIEST TEA AS EVIDENCE FOR ONE BRANCH OF THE SILK ROAD ACROSS THE TIBETAN PLATEAU,” BY HOUYUAN LU ET AL., IN SCIENTIFIC REPORTS, VOL. 6, ARTICLE NO. 18955; JANUARY 7, 2016; Map by Mapping Specialists

Famous for facilitating an incredible exchange of culture and goods between the East and the West, the ancient Silk Road is thought to have meandered across long horizontal distances in mountain foothills and the lowlands of the Gobi Desert. But new archaeological evidence hidden in a lofty tomb reveals that it also ventured into the high altitudes of Tibet—a previously unknown arm of the trade route.

Discovered in 2005 by monks, the 1,800-year-old tomb sits 4.3 kilometers above sea level in the Ngari district of Tibet. When excavations began in 2012, the research team examining the site was surprised to find a large number of quintessential Chinese goods inside. The haul lends itself to the idea that merchants were traveling from China to Tibet along a branch of the Silk Road that had been lost to history.

“The findings are astonishing,” says Houyuan Lu, an archaeobotanist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Geology and Geophysics in Beijing. Among other artifacts, archaeologists unearthed exquisite pieces of silk with woven Chinese characters wang hou (meaning “king” and “princes”), a mask made of pure gold, and ceramic and bronze vessels.

They also were taken aback by what looked like tea buds. The earliest documentation of tea in Tibet dates to the seventh century A.D., but these buds would be 400 to 500 years older. To confirm the identification, Lu and his colleagues analyzed the chemical components of the samples and detected ample amounts of caffeine and theanine, a type of amino acid abundant in tea. Moreover, the chemical fingerprints of the tea residues were similar to those of tea found in the tomb of a Chinese emperor of the Han Dynasty dated to 2,100 years ago, and both could be traced to tea varieties grown in Yunnan in southern China. “This strongly suggests that the tea [found in the Tibetan tomb] came from China,” Lu says. The findings were recently published in Scientific Reports.

Such early contacts between Tibet and China “point to a high-altitude component of the Silk Road in Tibet that has been largely neglected,” says Martin Jones, an archaeobotanist at the University of Cambridge. The evidence contributes to the emerging picture that the Silk Road—which the Ottoman Empire closed off in the 15th century—was a highly three-dimensional network that not only traversed vast linear distances but also scaled tall mountains.

Other studies, too, have documented signs of trade along mountain trails in Asia from around 3000 B.C.—routes now known as the Inner Asia Mountain Corridors. “This suggests that mountains are not barriers,” says Rowan Flad, an archaeologist at Harvard University. “They can be effective conduits for the exchange of cultures, ideas and technologies.”

This article was originally published in Scientific American with the title "Silk Road Heads for the Hills"

Archaeology

Silk Road Heads for the Hills - p23

Jane Qiu

doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0416-23

Full Text- Silk Road Heads for the Hills | PDF (2,215 KB)

New exhibition in Seattle: Journey to Dunhuang: Buddhist art of the Silk Road Caves

From IIAS The Newsletter 73 Spring 2016

Journey to Dunhuang: Buddhist art of the Silk Road caves

FOONG Ping

During World War II, James C. M. Lo 羅寄梅 (1902–1987), a photojournalist for the Central News Agency, and his wife Lucy 劉氏·羅先 arrived at Dunhuang. James Lo had taken a year’s leave to photograph the Buddhist cave temples at Mogao and at nearby Yulin. Lucy was also a photographer, and together they made the arduous journey in 1943. They systematically produced over 2500 black and white photographs that record the caves as they were in the mid-20th century.

The Lo Photographic Archive is a feat of ingenuity, organization, and sheer courage. Over the course of 18 months, the Los worked without electricity or running water. By day the couple used a system of small mirrors and cloths to reflect adequate light into the caves. By night they developed negatives with water from a nearby stream. Their photographs are historically very valuable since many of the views recorded no longer exist today. They are also of unusual artistic importance and reflect the Los’ remarkable aesthetic sensibilities (fig.1 & 2).

Fig. 1: View of the Northern Mogao Caves, Photograph taken in 1943–44, The Lo Archive.

This exhibition brings us the visual splendors of Dunhuang’s cave temples through the eyes of James and Lucy Lo, with a selection of their photographs, their collection of Dunhuang manuscripts, and life-size reproductions of the Mogao murals painted a decade later by young artists whom the Los inspired in Taiwan. While color publications and 3D digital models record Dunhuang with current technological sophistication, we are reminded of how the unwavering commitment of two people adds immeasurably to our deeper understanding of Dunhuang.

Fig. 2: View North From Mogao Cave 268 Into Adjacent Caves, Photograph taken in 1943–44, The Lo Archive.

Manuscripts and Zhang Daqian

The ancient documents that James and Lucy Lo collected while at Dunhuang reflect the Los’ broad interests in unusual scripts and their appreciation of various painting techniques.1 Some are a direct result of their meeting famed Chinese painter – and infamous forger – Zhang Daqian 張大千 (1899-1983), who was at Dunhuang repairing and making replicas of Mogao murals. He helped the Los form their collection of manuscript fragments and a few carry both their seals. For Zhang, Dunhuang represented a pure Chinese past and was key to reenergizing the Guocui 國粹 or ‘National Essence’ group.2 Zhang’s copies of the Mogao murals were exhibited on a world tour in Paris and at other venues. He even mined Dunhuang imagery to create a master forgery that he sold to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, as an ancient work.

Multicultural Dunhuang

Located at the convergence of the northern and southern routes of the Silk Road, Dunhuang was a multicultural desert oasis. Many languages were spoken there, including Chinese, Tibetan, Uyghur, Tangut and Hebrew. Several multilingual texts in the Lo collection attest to this diversity. They include two Yuan-dynasty sutras on display: written in Old Uyghur (Old Turkic) language and script, interspersed with Chinese; and printed in Tangut, a near extinct Sino-Tibetan language of northwestern China’s Xi Xia dynasty (1038–1227). Impressed on the latter is the Chinese seal of monk Guanzhuba 管主巴 (Tibetan: bKa’ ‘gyur pa, active 1302), an official of either Tangut or Tibetan descent who oversaw the printing of Buddhist texts in Chinese, Tangut, and Tibetan scripts.

Two manuscripts in the exhibition demonstrate a connection between Dunhuang and Chang’an, the capital of China in the Tang. They are test papers on the Confucian classics, likely from a local school in Dunhuang or Turfan. They represent aspirations to sit for the official examinations: the military conquests of Emperor Taizong 唐太宗 (r. 626–649) made it possible after the mid-7th century for the cultural values of central China to be transmitted to the western frontier through Confucian education. Since paper was precious, the manuscripts were later recut into a distinctive U-shape to form the upper part of a burial shoe (fig. 3).

fig.3: Examination paper, reused for the upper part of a funeral shoe. Manuscript fragment; ink on paper. Chinese, Tang dynasty (618–907), from Dunhuang or Turfan. The East Asian Library, Princeton University.

Artist renditions and recording damage, old and new

After moving to Taiwan in the 1950s, the Los became part of a community of artists and scholars. They invited a group of young artists to produce life-size copies of the Dunhuang murals, based on the Los’ slides and Lucy’s meticulous notes (fig. 4). Some were displayed at the 1964-65 World’s Fair at Flushing Meadows in Queens, New York, at the China pavilion. These facsimiles are indeed comparable to Zhang Daqian’s celebrated copies, and similar in their impulse to perpetuate knowledge of the ancient past through acts of reproduction.

fig.4: Landscape: Parable of the Illusory City. Ink and color on paper. James C. Lo Workshop, 1958-63. Copy after Mogao Cave 217, High Tang dynasty (704–781). Princeton University Art Museum, gift of Lucy L. Lo.

By the end of the Tang dynasty, the cliff face at Mogao was completely covered with caves. Since no new caves could be opened, donors paid for existing ones to be redecorated and their portraits would sometimes be added to the cave walls. Some Lo photographs document how walls were deeply scored during renovations, in preparation for a new, smooth surface of white gaolin clay; to James these scorings formed patterns of intrinsic visual interest. Using his black-and-white photographs of one such destroyed mural in Cave 13 – of its donor, the Lady Wang – an artist recreated a full color portrait by supplying details like her hair accessories and diaphanous shawl. Two huge artist renditions from the Lo ‘workshop’ depict the processions of Cave 156’s donors, General Zhang Yichao and his wife. These images record disfigurements from the relatively recent effects of over 900 White Russians living in the Mogao caves in the 1920s after fleeing Russia’s civil war. They left graffiti, and their cooking fires charred walls and blackened statues.

The Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection

This exhibition also presents an opportunity to view objects from the SAM’s collection. One is an impressed-clay votive tablet depicting a Buddha with pendant feet. The twelve-character inscription establishes a Tang dynasty date, around the 7th to 8th century, given the calligraphy’s proximity to the style of Tang courtier Chu Suiliang 褚遂良 (596–658). The previous owner, Ye Changchi 葉昌熾 (1849–1917), late Qing scholar and bibliophile, claimed that it originated from Dunhuang. And on display for the very first time are two wall painting fragments from the Kizil caves in Xinjiang province that were amongst many artifacts brought to Germany by explorers Albert Grünwedel (1856–1935) and Albert von Le Coq (1860–1930) from their Silk Road expeditions around 1905 to 1914.

---

FOONG Ping, Foster Foundation Curator of Chinese Art, Seattle Art Museum and Affiliate Associate Professor, University of Washington (PFoong@SeattleArtMuseum.org)

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Exhibition:

JOURNEY TO DUNHUANG: BUDDHIST ART OF THE SILK ROAD CAVES

MAR 5 – JUN 12 2016

ASIAN ART MUSEUM

FOSTER GALLERIES

• SEATTLE ART MUSEUM
• ASIAN ART MUSEUM
• OLYMPIC SCULPTURE PARK

Military Practice in Seventh-Century China and Byzantium

The Eurasian Way of War: 

Military Practice in Seventh-Century China and Byzantium 

Hardcover – 7 Apr 2016

by David A. Graff

• Hardcover: 218 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (7 April 2016)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415460344

This book is a comparative study of military practice in Sui-Tang China and the Byzantine Empire between approximately 600 and 700 CE. It covers all aspects of the military art from weapons and battlefield tactics to logistics, campaign organization, military institutions, and the grand strategy of empire. Whilst not neglecting the many differences between the Chinese and Byzantines, this book highlights the striking similarities in their organizational structures, tactical deployments and above all their extremely cautious approach to warfare. It shows that, contrary to the conventional wisdom positing a straightforward Western way of war and an "Oriental" approach characterized by evasion and trickery, the specifics of Byzantine military practice in the seventh century differed very little from what was known in Tang China. It argues that these similarities cannot be explained by diffusion or shared cultural influences, which were limited, but instead by the need to deal with common problems and confront common enemies, in particular the nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppes. Overall, this book provides compelling evidence that pragmatic needs may have more influence than deep cultural imperatives in determining a society’s "way of war."

First exhibition of Afghan Buddhism in Europe (Prague)

Unique exhibition spotlights Afghanistan’s Buddhist period

Radio CZ  03-03-2016  | Daniela Lazarová

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An exhibition called Afghanistan: Rescued Treasures of Buddhism organized by the National Museum aims to present the war-torn country in a different light, to draw attention to its rich cultural history and point out the many influences that left their mark on Afghan culture and traditions. The exhibition focuses on the country’s pre-Islamic Buddhist period. Its chief organizer Lubomír Novák showed me around and began by explaining what makes the exhibition so special.

Download: MP3

Photo: National Museum“The exhibition Afghanistan: Rescued Treasures of Buddhism is the first exhibition of Afghan Buddhism in Europe and the second exhibition of Afghan art to be presented on the territory of Europe so the exhibition is really special in this respect and also in that it presents the largely unknown history of Afghanistan before the coming of Islam. Not many people around the world know that Afghanistan is not just an Islamic country but that it has a rich Buddhist history which reaches to the so-called Kushan period which started approximately in the 1st century AD. So in this respect the exhibition is really amazing and we are happy that here in Prague we can present this unknown part of the history of a country that is known as a country of war. The first historical reference to the territory of present-day Afghanistan is linked to military campaigns of Persians and many wars and military conflicts followed in the history of the country, but Afghanistan is not just a country of war but a country of art, knowledge and literature. “

Where were these artefacts found and how were they preserved?

“The majority of artefacts presented at the exhibition are from a site called Mes’ Aynak located some 40 kilometers eastward from Kabul. The site is specific because it was one of the crossroads on the Silk Road, there was a mining agglomeration, several Buddhist monasteries, a fort and probably also a Zoroastrian shrine. So it is our aim to present this site which is really amazing and will probably be destroyed due to the fact that it lies on a large copper deposit, probably the largest in the world.”

“Not many people around the world know that Afghanistan is not just an Islamic country but that it has a rich Buddhist history.”

Were the artefacts hidden in order to protect them from being destroyed?

“They were hidden and nowadays they are preserved in the depositories of the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul.” 

And have they been restored? What condition were they found in?

“The majority of artefacts presented here were stored in the depositories in Kabul and only those artefacts that were in a really bad state were conserved in the laboratories of Kabul Museum, there were not many of those and we restored them in the laboratories of the National Museum in Terezin in the Czech Republic.” 

And the Afghan side agreed with that?

“Yes, the agreement was that the Czech Museum would get the exhibition for free and in return we would restore all the artefacts for the Afghan Museum.” 

Can we take a turn around the exhibition now and can you point out some of the interesting pieces you have on display?

Photo: National Museum“Certainly. The first artefact you see here is a statue of Buddha, the so-called Miracle of Sravasti which is connected with the revealing of the teaching of Dharma, which was revealed in the city of Sravasti in present-day India and from this point started the teaching of so-called Mahayana Buddhism, the main Buddhist school which is known world-wide. So this statue is the “welcome” artefact of the exhibition and it tries to show the historical context of all the artefacts displayed here.” The greatest number of artefacts on display are jewelry, and also some pottery which shows the common aspect of the life of people in pre-Islamic Afghanistan. We have on display here two fragments of text written in the Bactrian language, which is now a dead language of northern Afghanistan, related to Pashto one of the official languages of Afghanistan and what is amazing is that these texts are written in an Iranian dialect but they are written in Greek script adopted for this dialect. Now the Bactrian language is preserved from the 2nd to the 8th century AD when the Greek culture was already dead in a way but its influence was still present in Afghanistan and the script is proof that the Greeks never died out culturally in Afghanistan.” 

“In another glass case we have specimen of several coins from Afghanistan and we wanted to show people the continuity from the Greek period so the first displayed coin is that of Alexander the Great -that’s four to five hundred years before the main focus of the exhibition - and them we continue with Kushan and Sasanian coins in order to show the chronology of rules in Afghanistan in that period. ”

Photo: National MuseumAnd now we come to the second exhibition hall….

“Yes, the second hall presents the site of Mes’Aynak and here we have a reconstruction of a Mes’Aynak house. Inside visitors can see two large storage jars that served to store food and water.” 

So this is what the houses looked like?

“Approximately. It is a model of what a Mes’Aynak house may have looked like.”

And it was made of wood?

“No, they were made of Adobe bricks.” 

And here we have quite a few pieces…..

Photo: National Museum“Yes, the third room of the exhibition begins with Buddhism in Afghanistan. In the centre of the room there is a wooden model of a stupa, one of the Buddhist religious structures which was used to store important relics belonging to the Buddha and sacred texts, and people walked around stupas clockwise so we arranged the exhibit so that people here also perform this small Buddhist ritual and walk around the stupa clockwise. Around there are Buddhist statues and some other items. For example the first two displayed artefacts are a Buddhist alter and painting both of them depicting Buddha in the dhyana mudra position on a lotus flower –so the same thing in a different artistic presentation. ” 

This Buddha’s eyes have been scratched out…

“Yes, on this painting we can clearly see what happened to Buddhist art after the coming of Islam. Sunni Islam forbids the depiction of human beings which is different compared to Buddhism so they censored the art as we can see here. Eyes were scratched out or else they were painted black. They preserved the painting but censored it in a way so that it would not contradict the Sunny doctrine of Islam. So Islam did not destroy all the previous art but it modified it according to its teaching.” 

And here we have more Buddhas – statuettes…

Photo: National Museum“Yes, they are Buddha statuettes and many of them show the Indian origin of Buddhism and Buddhist art but an aware visitor may see that Greek influences are visible on many of the statues.”

So there was the Indian influence and the Greek influence as well?

“Yes, because in the Kushan period Afghanistan was a melting pot of the Greek influence which came with Alexander and remained there during the Hellenistic period and it mixed with nomadic influences after the coming of nomadic tribes which were the main ethnic group from which the Kushan dynasty formed and it melted with the influence from India so the Kushan period in Afghanistan was really a multi-cultural empire that shows influences from various parts of the world from Persia, from India, from China from central/Asian parts of the Silk Road so it was really an amazing place and the Kushan period is considered to be the Golden Age in the history of Afghanistan.”

And you can see these influences in the way the Buddhas are sitting or standing?

“In the Kushan period Afghanistan was really a multi-cultural empire that shows influences from various parts of the world- from Persia, from India, from China from central/Asian parts of the Silk Road.”

“Not just in that but in the whole artistic presentation in clothing, profile etc. It is really hard to explain, people need to see it for themselves, to compare the statues and try to detect the Greek influence.” 

And what have we here?

“This is one of the biggest artefacts on display - the head of Buddha made of clay. It is very heavy and it was very difficult to transport it from Kabul National Museum to Prague. The face shows clear Indian influence and it has a very peaceful expression so it is tempting to lower yourself a little in order to look into Buddha’s eyes and find a bit of peace here at the exhibition.” 

And how has the public responded? How much interest has the exhibition generated?

Photo: National Museum“As far as I know in the first three weeks of the exhibition we had more than 4,000 visitors which is a great audience and we did not expect it. We are really happy about the interest and I think it may also be due to the fact that people do not know very much about Afghanistan. So we are happy that we could show Afghanistan in a different light so that people may learn that Afghanistan is not just “Talibanistan” but it is also a country with a large and rich cultural tradition.” 

The exhibition is on display at the Náprstek Museum of Asian, African and American Cultures. For more information go to: 

http://www.nm.cz/Naprstkovo-muzeum/Vystavy-NpM/Afghanistan-zachranene-poklady-buddhismu.html