7v~,

ber 197^ (26th year) - 1.70 French francs

PAKISTAN

5,000 YEARS

OF ART & CULTURE

!

BHH8BB9ISB»»mBM

U^IJH

BUM

BBS

fflfflMlTfifl

11818 H

ihshkh

«Di

«31«BjKHtaf.1

hBhB ^^H

jffin%Jwnm raH1 £':-?,>. ' ÜH»^ p4iBfflg9B^ni BBSS

- SSM¿^tó;'

nrí^í&¿;ï3**ï£

HBEB.->r'';>i:: "

ral 9BS

TREASURES

OF

WORLD ART

83

TURKEY

YoungHittite mother

Cradle of civilizations

dating back to the dawnof history, Turkey boastsan illustrious array ofart and monuments from

its ancient past. Amongthese vestiges of anti¬quity are the works ofcraftsmen and sculptorsof the Hittites whose

art and culture devel¬

oped about 4,000 yearsago in central Anatoliaand flowered duringmore than six centuries.

The Hittite civilization

was contemporary withthose of Assyria andPhoenicia and also with

that of the Indus valley

at Moenjodaro and Har-appa (see page 14). Itspeople mined copper,lead and silver and dev¬

eloped advanced tech¬niques of metalworking.The skill of an Anatolian

craftsman of 3,500 yearsago is displayed in thislittle bronze statuette

(7 cm. high).

Couri erPaga

DECEMBER 1973

26TH YEAR

PUBLISHED IN 15 LANGUAGES

English Arabic Hebrew

French Japanese Persian

Spanish Italian Dutch

Russian Hindi PortugueseGerman Tamil Turkish

Published monthly by UNESCO

The United Nations

Educational, Scientific

and Cultural Organization

Sales and Distribution Offices

Unesco, Place de Fontenoy, 75700 Paris

Annual subscription rate 17 French francs

The UNESCO COURIER is published monthly, except inAugust and September when it is bi-monthly (1 1 issues ayear). For list of distributors see inside back cover.Individual articles and photographs not copyrighted maybe reprinted providing the credit line reads 'Reprinted fromthe UNESCO COURIER," plus date of issue, and threevoucher copies are sent to the editor. Signed articles re¬printed must bear author's name. Non-copyright photoswill be supplied on request. Unsolicited manuscripts cannotbe returned unless accompanied by an international replycoupon covering postage. Signed articles express theopinions of the authors and do not necessarily representthe opinions of UNESCO or those of the editors of theUNESCO COURIER.

The Unesco Courier is produced in microform (micro¬film and/or microfiche) by : (1) University Microfilms(Xerox), Ann Arbor, Michigan 48100. U.S.A.; (2)N.C.R.Microcard Edition, Indian Head, Inc., Ill West 40thStreet, New York. U.S.A.; (3) Bell and Howell C°..Old Mansfield Road. Wooster. Ohio 44691, U.S.A.

The Unesco Courier is indexed monthly in theReaders' Guide to Periodical Literature, published byH. W. Wilson Co., New York, and in Current Con¬tents - Education, Philadelphia, U.S.A.

Editorial Office

Unesco, Place de Fontenoy, 75700 Paris - France

Editor-in-Chief

Sandy Koffler

Assistant Editor-in-Chief

René Caloz

Assistant to the Editor-in-Chief

Olga Rodel

Ronald Fenton (Paris): Jane Albert Hesse (Paris)Francisco Fernández-Santos (Paris)Georgi Stetsenko (Paris)Werner Merkli (Berne)Abdel Moneim El Sawi (Cairo)Kazuo Akao (Tokyo)Maria Remiddi (Rome)Ramesh Bakshi (Delhi)N.D. Sundaravadivelu (Madras)Alexander Peli (Jerusalem)Fereydoun Ardalan (Teheran)Paul Morren (Antwerp)Benedicto Silva (Rio de Janeiro)Mefra Telci (Istanbul)

Assistant Editors

English Edition : Howard BrabynFrench Edition : Philippe OuannèsSpanish Edition : Jorge Enrique Adoum

Illustrations : Anne- Marie Maillard

Research : Christiane Boucher

Layout and Design : Robert Jacquemin

All correspondence should be addressed tothe Editor-in-Chief In Paris

4 PAKISTAN : 5,000 YEARS OF ART AND CULTUREBy Syed A. Naqvi

9 MOEIMJODARO

MODERN METROPOLIS OF ANTIQUITYBy S.M. Ashfaque and Syed A. Naqvi

10 EVERYDAY LIFE IN HARAPPAAND MOENJODAROPhoto report

12 TERRACOTTA IN WONDERLANDPhoto report

14 WORLD CIVILIZATIONS FROM 2500 TO 1500 B.C.A comparative table

16 MOENJODARO IN PERILBy Hiroshi Daifuku

19 ART TREASURES OF PAKISTANEight pages in full colour

27 POETRY AND REALISM

IN MOGHUL MINIATURE PAINTINGBy Mumtaz Hasan

28 MYSTERY SCRIPT OF THE INDUS VALLEYBy Ahmad Hasan Dani

31 THE COMPUTER TAKES A CRACKAT CODE-CRACKING

-

34 THE GLORY THAT WAS SHALAMARLahore's 17th century garden of delightsBy Muhammad Ishtlaq Khan

39 NASIMI, POET-PHILOSOPHEROF AZERBAIJAN

By Vagif Aslanov

41 UNESCO NEWSROOM

42 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

2 TREASURES OF WORLD ART

Young Hittite mother (Turkey)

Managing EditorsEnglish Edition :

French Edition :

Spanish Edition :

Russian Edition :

German Edition :

Arabic Edition :

Japanese Edition :

Italian Edition :

Hindi Edition :

Tamil Edition :

Hebrew Edition :

Persian Edition :

Dutch Edition :

Portuguese Edition :Turkish Edition :

DEC 197S

PAKISTAN : 5,000 YEARS OF ART AND CULTURE

The present grows out of the past, it has beensaid, and the future out of the present The betterwe understand the past, the better shall we be ableto mould the future. Pakistan is a nation which can

boast a history going back almost 5,000 years. Thisland, perched in the heart of the Asian continent,has forged its own rich culture and original artisticexpression, blending and assimilating cultural ele¬ments from both East and West : Greco-Buddhist

art of Gandhara (cover photo of the Buddha), Moghulminiature painting and landscape art, Islamic archi¬tecture, and Pakistan's oldest cultural complex, Moen-jodaro (which must be saved from destruction) haveall enriched the nation's vast cultural heritage.

NEW PRICE OF THE UNESCO COURIER

The continued rise in production and distribution costshas made it necessary to increase the price of theUNESCO COURIER.

From January I, 1974our new rate will be as follows:

Annual subscription : 24 French francsSingle copy price: 2.40 French francs

We are sure that all readers will understand the needfor these measures and will continue to support theUNESCO COURIER not only by renewing their sub¬scriptions, but also by offering gift subscriptions tofriends and relatives. Readers are assured that theEditors will do their best to present each month aninformative, provocative periodical of the highesteditorial standards.

Unkfco's National Distributors (see list page 43) will informsubscribers of equivalent rates in other currencies.

PAKISTAN

5,000 YEARSOF ART

r & CULTURE

by Syed A. Naqvi

Photo Guy Thomas © J. Biltgen, Paris

4 Islamabad is the new capital of Pakistan, but for a short period before its construction, Rawalpindi nearbyhad the honour of being Pakistan's interim capital. Located near the ruins of Taxila, it marks the site of theStone Age civilization of the Soan valley (see page 5). Photo shows delicately carved minarets and domeof a mosque in Rawalpindi.

'ULTURAL relics of a coun¬

try are the virtual foundations foradvancement in corporate life. Asachievements acquired after prolongedstruggle with nature and environment,they manifest the store of creativeintelligence, initiative, perseveranceand integrity that have gone into themaking of a particular national charac¬ter.

Pakistan has been very fortunate inthis respect. Admittedly, this land hasbeen an important primeval stage forthe grand and grim drama of man'sfirst endeavour, his integral rise, hisphenomenal fall and the great resili¬ence which kept the stream of humanlife in action in spite of all obstructionsand intermittent lapses.

Rough and rugged implements un¬earthed by the eroding current of theriver Soan near Rawalpindi carry thesaga of human toil and labour to theinterglacial ages roughly estimated at500,000 years before our time. Theseare stone "choppers" and "hand-axes"which are hardly different from river-rounded pebbles to the layman's eye.They have revealed a written chapterto the archaeologist proving that evenin so remote a period man had provedhis intellectual superiority over allother beings of the jungle. Indomitableand free, he roved through the thickforests and hunted other animals for

food and perhaps even for sport.

But we have no other records to

link those interglacial anthropos totheir primate ancestors or to morecivilized progeny. It is in the moundsof Baluchistan that a chink is openedto the distant past.

The pieces of pottery excavated inBaluchistan dislose the existence of a

new era. Here we find a more con¬

tinuous chapter of human activitydating back to 5000 B.C. though stillin the Stone Age. Here, man is alreadyestablished both as herdsman and

farmer. He is found settled in villagesin the little valleys amongst the hillsor occasionally on the outskirts of theplains. He is seen growing crops,milking cows and shearing sheep.

Yet much more has to be exploredto reconstruct the true position ofPakistan in this vital phase of growthand experiment which culminated inthe great civilization of ancient Meso¬potamia on one side and the IndusValley on the other.

Between the years 2500 and 1500B.C., there flourished in the Indus plainone of the most well-developed civi¬lizations of the ancient Middle East.

SYED A. NAQVI, Internationally knownarchaeologist and museologist, was GeneralDirector of Pakistan's Department of Archaeo¬logy and Museums until last July, when hejoined Unesco's Division for the Developmentof the Cultural Heritage. Former head of theNational Museum of Pakistan, in Karachi, hehas excavated at many Pakistani sites Includ¬ing Moenjodaro, Taxlla and Mansura. Amonghis studies on archaeology and ancient art are'The Muslim Art" (1966), "Gandhara Art"(1967) and "1,400 Years of Quranic Calligra¬phy" (1973).

THIS issue of the "Unesco Courier" is devoted in majorpart to Pakistan and its rich heritage of art and culture.Pakistan's cultural history goes back almost 5,000 yearswhen a great civilization was born in the Indus valley (seearticle page 9). Excavations at two of its major cities,Moenjodaro and Harappa, show that the Indus valley peoplereached a remarkable stage of development in town planningand architecture and an extraordinary degree of artisticsophistication. Today the site of Moenjodaro is threatenedwith destruction by salt corrosion and flooding from theIndus river.

THE recent flood damage to cultural monuments andeducational facilities in Pakistan amounts to a real disaster

affecting the country's future, declared René Maheu,Director-General of Unesco, 'at a special press conferenceheld in Paris last September. World public opinion, he said,must be alerted to the serious damage from floods inthe Punjab and in the Indus valley. The number of edu¬cational establishments at all levels either destroyed ordamaged was in the order of 8,000, nearly 800 of themsecondary schools or post-secondary and technical insti¬tutes. The damage, so far calculated at $13 million,affected buildings, libraries, equipment and laboratories,said Mr. Maheu.

DAMAGE had also been suffered by over 30 monumentsof major importance and 150 other monuments or archaeo¬logical sites. The threat to the famous site of Moenjodaro,in which Unesco is particularly interested, had beenconsiderably increased. Mr. Maheu appealed to internationalsolidarity, urging those who were able to contribute incash or in kind to help the rebuilding of the educationalinfrastructure and the preservation of the cultural heritageof Pakistan.

UNESCO and the Government of Pakistan have drawn upa plan for the preservation and development of theMoenjodaro site. The first phase will require an estimated$7.5 million (see article page 16). The Executive Board ofUnesco has authorized the Director-General to launch an

international campaign aimed at raising $5 million towardsthe first phase of the preservation and protection ofMoenjodaro.

Moenjodaro and Harappa, the twoimportant city sites of this civilizationexposed by the archaeologist's spade,are the outstanding examples ofregimented life.

The wide, straight roads dividing andsub-dividing the city in square blocks,well planned houses and undergroundsystem of drainage are still a modelto the present day town-planner. Theinhabitants lived largely by agriculturebut also maintained a trade with lands

as far away as Mesopotamia andnorthern Afghanistan.

Of the early stages of this civi¬lization, nothing was known till therecent excavations at Kot Diji in UpperSind which provided important cluesto this question and also brought tolight remains of an earlier culture ofequally remarkable character, roughlydatable from 3000 to 2500 B.C. It

seems to have influenced different

aspects of life and culture of the Induspeople, though our information is stillvery meagre.

By about 1500 B.C., the Indus ValleyCivilization, however, seems to havedisappeared under inexplicable con¬ditions followed by a wide gap ofabout one thousand years. Theexcavated remains at Taxila and a

number of monasteries and stupas inthe north-west now bring us down tothe period of recorded history. It wasno longer an isolated culture.

Although separated by the loftyHimalayas and the Hindu Kush rangesfrom the neighbouring cities of centralAsia, Taxila still formed part of oneand the same Buddhistic civilization.

The first city of Taxila or Bhir Moundas it is known, has preserved little toshow any notable advancement in artand architecture (see "Unesco Cour¬ier", October 1972).

The serene pool of this life was,however, rudely disturbed by thehaughty and youthful Macedonianintruder in 326 B.C. But this conquestby Alexander proved a boon indisguise. The pagan Greeks soon

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

5

Photo Turab All, Karachi, Pakistan

6

PAKISTAN (Continued)

found themselves subdued by thesuperior religious logic of the Bud¬dhists and employed all their art andintelligence in creating a new Buddhawith beautiful Greco-Roman features

and an oriental halo. This mode of

sculpture, which has since come to beknown as Gandhara Art, marked anescape from the conventional Indianstyle.

In 711 A.D., at the time when theGothic Kingdom of Spain was capturedand when Kashghar was being con¬quered by an Arab army, the provincesof Sind and Multan were annexed to

the dominions of Islam. This first

impact of Islam on the life and cultureof this region is markedly manifest inthe excavated remains of Banbhore,

an Arab port near Karachi, and in theearly Islamic art and architecture ofHyderabad, Multan, Rohri, Uch, Seh-wan and Brahmanabad.

The culture which the Muslims

brought from Syria and Persia created,with the fusion of local elements, atradition which was henceforth to

dominate the scene, and graduallybecame identical with the art and

culture, thought and aspirations of thesub-continent.

The political conquest of the landwas, however, left to the Turks whocame in the wake of the invasions ofSultan Mahmud of Ghazni in the 11th

century A.D. But, with the exception ofvery few specimens, most of the sur¬viving relics of Islam may be attributed

Photo Dept. of Archaeology and Museums, Pakistan

Few sculptures in stone have been found at Moenjodaro. Above, two striking pieces now inthe National Museum of Pakistan, at Karachi. Left, a limestone head from the late period of Moen¬jodaro (1500 B.C.). The hair is cut short and held in place with a net. Right, the famousKing-Priest, carved in steatite (about 2500 B.C.). The trefoil pattern on his tunic suggests hispriestly functions. From Mesopotamia to the Indus the trefoil was a religious symbol closelylinked with the cult of the stars.

to the Imperial Moghuls or their con¬temporary local dynasties. The markedabsence of Muslim monuments priorto the Moghuls is a strange phenom¬enon and difficult to explain unlessit is supposed that the enhanced build¬ing activity of the 16th and the latercenturies completely swept awayearlier and outmoded structures.

The existing monuments of this pre-Moghul Sultanate period (1206-1526)are grouped save a few tombs atThatta in Multan. The finest of them,the tomb of saint Shah Rukn-i-Alam

(1320-24), has been described as "oneof the most splendid memorials evererected in honour of the dead". It is

octagonal in plan and the brickworkis elaborately carved with a liberalinter-mixture of azure and white glazedtiles.

Architecturally, the tomb marks anepoch in Indo-lslamic forms and antici¬pates elements which went into themaking of a number of Moghul monu¬ments during the following centuries.The features which distinguish thearchitecture of this period are a ruggedsimplicity and massiveness showingcentral Asian and Persian influence,

circular or polygonal forms, andextensive use of local material.

The Moghul Empire of India wasestablished by Emperor Babur in 1526.But it was Akbar the Great who laidits real foundation. Born in 1542 at

Umarkot in Sind, he left before hisdeath in 1605 not only a large empire

and a dynamic social and economicsystem, but also a distinct style ofart and architecture created by aharmonious fusion of the parallelstrains of central Asian, Persian and

indigenous traditions. This Indo-lranianMoghul style was further developedand refined in the succeeding centuryby his grandson Shah Jahan, theMaster Builder. Pakistan possessessome of the finest creations of thisGolden Era.

Many buildings from the Moghulperiod are to be seen in Thatta, theancient capital of Sind. Here, in theold city lies Shah Jahan's Mosque,a marvel in coloured tile work, whilecountless mausoleums of princes,ministers, governors and holy menspread over an area of six squaremiles on the nearby Makli Hill, thebiggest necropolis of the East.

With the advent of the Moghuls,Lahore entered the front rank of Asian

cities with the construction of a series

of magnificent structures. Today, manyof the great relics of Moghul architec¬tural achievements can still be seen

there including the fortified citadelbegun by Akbar and subsequentlyenriched with dainty palaces by hissuccessors. Jahangir's mausoleum,Noorjahan's tomb, the ShalamarGardens and Wazir Khan's Mosqueare some of the other outstandingmonuments which remind us of the

great role played by the Moghuls aspatrons of art and architecture.

5th centuryperegrinationsof the

Chinese monk

Fa-Hsien

The Chinese Buddhist monk, Fa-

Hsien, is famous as one of the great

traveller-scholars of antiquity. At

the beginning of the 5th century

he undertook an extraordinary

pilgrimage, traversing thousandsof miles of desert, mountain and

jungle to follow in the footstepsof the Buddha across the ancient

Indo-Pakistan sub-continent. For

15 years, from 399 to 414 A.D.. Fa-

Hsien travelled in search of all the

places visited by the Buddha, recor¬

ding every scrap of information

about him and describing festivalsheld in his honour and the monu¬

ments erected to him. Below, a short

passage from Fa-Hsien's "Record

of Buddhistic Kingdoms" (trans¬

lated by J. Legge, Oxford, 1886) :

...Seven days Journey to the east

brought the travellers to the

kingdom of Takshasila, [Taxila]which means "the severed head"

in the language of China. Here

when Buddha was a Bodhisattva,he gave away his head to a man;and from this circumstance the

kingdom got its name.

Going on further for two days tothe east, they came to the placewhere the Bodhisattva threw down

his body to feed a starving tigress.

In these places also large topes

[shrines] have been built, both

adorned with layers of all the

precious substances. The kings,

ministers and peoples of the king¬doms around vie with one another

in making offerings at them. Thetrains of those who come to scatter

flowers and light lamps at themnever cease. The nations of those

quarters call those (and the other

two mentioned before) " the four

great topes "...

Right, detail of a statue ofa bodhisattva or future

Buddha. The folds of the

robe and the style of thesandal are characteristic of

a form of Greco-Buddhist

art known as " Gandhara "

(4th and 3rd centuries

B.C.) which flourished in

an area around Peshawar

in north-west Pakistan.

VÍ

Photo Guy Thomas © J. Biltgen, Peshawar Museum, Pakistan

iJ j

The terracotta figurinesfound at Moenjodarohave furnished invalu¬

able information

about the customs and

costumes of the per¬iod. Right, a womancarrying baskets on herhead and wearing ashort skirt held in

place by a belt with alarge buckle. Aroundher neck she wears a

pendant with largestones. The men and

women of Moenjodaroseem to have had a

predilection for jewels.

8

©

MOENJODARO

MODERN METROPOLIS

OF ANTIQUITY

4,500 years ago in the valley of the Indus,

an extraordinary civilization flourishedcovering a million square kilometres

by S.M. Ashfaque

and Syed A. Naqvi

_ HE Indus valley in Pakis¬tan shares with Mesopotamia and thevalley of the Nile the pride of beingthe cradle of one of the earliest civi¬lizations of the world. Moenjodaro,an important metropolis of that civi¬lization, exposed by the archaeol¬ogist's spade about 250 miles north ofKarachi, bears eloquent testimony ofa highly developed society.

The original inhabitants of the SouthAsian sub-continent were describedin the Vedas as heathens and bar¬barians speaking gibberish, living infortified cities and raising herds ofcattle. But excavations carried outat the Indus valley sites of Harappaand Moenjodaro in 1921 and thesubsequent years established that thepeople living in these 4,500-year-oldcities were highly civilized and indus¬trious, possessing a high standard ofarts and craftsmanship, and a welldeveloped system of pictographicwriting.

In area, the Indus Valley Civilizationwas much more extensive than thecivilizations of Mesopotamia andEgypt combined, being roughly 1,600kilometres in length from north to southand more than 800 kilometres inbreadth from east to west.

The economy of the cities ofHarappa and Moenjodaro was based

S.M. ASHFAQUE Is head of the Epigraphicalbranch of Pakistan's Department of Archaeo¬logy and Museums and was formerly headof the Ethnological Department of the Natio¬nal Museum of Pakistan In Karachi. Authorof many papers on archaeology and museo-logy, he has made a special study of astro¬labes and other astronomical .instrumentsdeveloped during the Moghul period.SYED A. NAQVI (See note page 5).

upon the fertile valleys of the majorrivers of the Indus basin and the easymeans of transportation which theserivers afforded. Agriculture was themain occupation of the people. Thereis evidence to show that wheat, barley,sesame, dates and cotton were themain agricultural products.

The vast quantity of burnt bricksand common use of terracotta potteryindicate that in the past, wood wasavailable in plenty in the countrysideto provide fuel for the kilns. Thebrick-lined drains found in the remains

of the city and pictorial representationon seals of such animals as tiger,rhinoceros, elephant and buffalo,which favour a moist habitat, go toprove that the Indus valley enjoyed acopious rainfall in its heyday.

The surplus of agricultural productsand the availability of easy means ofcommunication made it possible forthe people to barter their goods forraw materials such as metals, semi¬precious stones and spices from out¬side. The trade links of the Indus

valley have been traced to centralAsia, Afghanistan, north-eastern Per¬sia, south India, and nearer home toBaluchistan, Rajasthan and Gujarat.Trade was mostly carried over landroutes, but there is also evidence ofsea links.

Direct evidence of the use of sail¬

boats is confined to some pictureson a seal, a potsherd graffito and aterracotta relief found at Moenjodaro.The picture of the boat on a smallsteatite seal shows a craft with

sharply turned up bows and stern, acentral cabin, mast and steering oar.Such boats appear to be mainly suit¬able for river sailing, but possibly they

also ventured out along the coastalwaters up to Lothal at the head of theGulf of Cambay in the south-east andto Sutkagendor on the Makran Coastand the Persian Gulf in the west.

The ruins of Moenjodaro fall intomore or less two distinct parts: alower and upper city. The upper city,close to the Archaeological Museumof Moenjodaro, is an oblong moundof which a considerable portion hasbeen exposed to view. It comprisesthe Great Bath, the Great Granary, thePillared Hall and a number of other

structures arranged in rows dividedby lanes and by-lanes. The remainsof the ancient civilization are toppedby an imposing Buddhist stupa of thesecond century A.D., rising 72 feetabove the surrounding plain to domi¬nate the scene.

The lower city lying to the east isan extensive mound of undulatingsurface, three large portions of whichhave been excavated. The exposedareas show extensive remains of resi¬

dential quarters arranged in blocksneatly divided by streets and lanes.

Excavations in the upper city haverevealed that for the most part, it wasrebuilt upon an artificial hill 20 to40 feet in height, crowned by theBuddhist stupa. The artificial plat¬form of the citadel is built of mud-brick and mud.

Evidence shows that a rising watertable and floods had plagued the cityeven as they do today. Especially inthe lower city, closer to the river in ^the east, there are traces of embank- Uments and terraced structures built to "protect the settlement from the rivererosion and inundation.

CONTINUED PAGE 11

EVERYDAY LIFE

IN THE CITIES

OF THE INDUS

The vestiges uncovered at Harappa andMoenjodaro have provided a valuableinsight into the daily lives of the inhabitantsof these two cities 4,500 years ago.Archaeologists have been able to recons¬

titute a picture of the architecture and

the function of many buildings. Above,a reconstitution of the Great Bath, the

most remarkable building of Moenjodaro.The 12-metre-long bath itself was madecompletely watertight by the applicationof a layer of bitumen between two layersof brick pointed with lime mortar. Right,reconstitution of a large house containinga bathroom, a well and several rooms

giving on to a central courtyard. At

Harappa, archaeologists have also un¬

covered 17 threshing floors (opposite page)placed at the base of the city's grainsilos. They consist of large, circular,brick platforms with a central hole perhapsused for crushing the grain with a pestle.Above right, a shop or craftsman's work¬shop at Moenjodaro. The cone-shapeddepressions in the floor were perhapsdyers' vats or holders for oil jars.

\ I wBT^ s â

10

*

^Sfc^

_^*c

MOENJODARO (Continued)

The houses of Moenjodaro remindone of the dictum of Francis Bacon,"Houses are built to live in, not tolook at." It seems that the aim ofthe city builders was to make lifecomfortable rather than luxurious.

The ante-chambers, parlours, court¬yards, toilets, staircases and wellsseen in almost every dwelling give animpression of immaculate planning forevery convenience.

Within the exposed parts of theupper city, the most famous structureis that of the Great Bath, 39 feet inlength from north to south, 23 feet inbreadth, sunk 8 feet below a brick

paved floor enclosed in a courtyard.The rows of rectangular pillars on allfour sides indicate a corridor or pav¬ilion which shows that the Bath was a

place of some kind of social gatheringor, as interpreted by the archaeo¬logist, a place of religious bathing onsome particular occasion. The com¬plex of adjacent rooms and waterclosets strengthens the latter infer¬ence, and it may be concluded thatlife in Moenjodaro was dominated bysome kind of priestly guardian orauthority.

From the technical viewpoint, themasonry structure of the Great Bathreveals the high degree of skill andcraftsmanship that went into itsconception and construction. Thefloor of the bath is reached by bricksteps originally provided with timbertreads set in asphalt. To make thebasin watertight, its floor and sideswere lined with bricks set on edge in

gypsum. Behind the facing bricksof the sides was a layer of bitumenheld in place by an additional liningof bricks encased in a packing of mud-bricks.

On the eastern, side of the bathingpavilion, a well with a double ring ofbrickwork undoubtedly supplied waterto the tank through a sluice connectedto the basin. Near the south-western

comer, there was an outlet by anunderground drain covered by acorbelled arch through which thewater of the tank was flushed andled down to the western side of the

city. All those details not only showthe technical ingenuity of the buildersbut also reveal their deep preoccu¬pation with matters of hygiene.

On the western side of the Great

Bath is a peculiar masonry structureconsisting of a number of square plat¬forms of more or less uniform size

rising five feet in height. The blocksare divided by a network of narrowpassages meeting at right angles.

On the eastern and southern sides

there are remnants of a superstructureshowing timber holes. Basing him¬self upon the analogy of a granaryfound at Harappa, the noted archae¬ologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler advan¬ced the view that this structure also

represents a kind of silo for grainstorage.

A series of solid masonry blocksformed a podium supporting the timberfloor of the Great Granary. The

?Ä' Jfr

Photos © Papiqny Paris

narrow passages were the air ductsto keep the bottom of the 'silo dryand safe from the effect of groundmoisture. The external walls of the

podium were battered like that of afortress, and on the northern sidewas an alcove with a brick pavement.The presence of a granary at Moenjo¬daro indicates that there was prob¬ably a barter system for exchange ofcommodities, the granary serving thepurpose of a state treasury.

Towards the north-east of the Great

Bath, there is an outline of a longbuilding the plan of which suggeststhat it was the residence of the Chief

Priest, or perhaps a hostel for anumber of priests. This cloister-likestructure includes an open courtyardenclosed by verandahs on three sides.The structural alternations suggestthat once five doorways opened intoit from a lane on the eastern side and

one door each on the southern and

western sides. The floor throughoutthe rooms is paved with bricks, andthere is evidence of two staircases

leading to an upper storey.

The presence of such buildingsbesides the ordinary dwellingssuggests that the ancient people hadcertain social institutions which pro¬vided occasions for group activities.It is just possible that this large build¬ing might have been the "punchait"or court of the city magistrate.

The three important buildings of theupper city, the as yet unexcavatedcomplex of structures in the southern

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

11

Photo Guy Thomas (D J. Biltgen, Paris

TERRACOTTA

WONDERLAND

In the Indus Valley Civilization terracotta was widely used for a variety of purposes inarchitecture (bricks and pipes), for household objects (vases and other containers), for or¬naments (bracelets) and in sculpture (figurines of humans and animals). (1) A terracotta rhi¬noceros found at Moenjodaro. The potters also made terracotta toys such as this solid-wheeled, single-shaft cart (4) drawn by a pair of water buffaloes, identical with those stillused today by Pakistani farmers in the Sind. Many curiously fashioned human figurines havealso been unearthed at Moenjodaro. (2 and 3.)

12

MOENJODARO (Continued)

sector and the probability of peri¬pheral towers suggest that it was theresidential sector of the élite and theofficials who controlled the secular

and religious administration.

The lower city of Moenjodaro is anexcellent example of scientific townplanning with its basic gridiron systemof main streets demarcating blocksof residential houses. The principalthoroughfare is the Central Streetrunning the whole length of the ruinsfrom north to south. The main streets

are about 30 feet wide joined by lanesand side streets varying from 5 to10 feet in width. The, doors of thehouses usually open on to the lanesrather than the main streets.

Some of the houses have rectangu¬lar windows, which might have orig¬inally been closed by lattices ofalabaster and terracotta. To keep outthe scorching sun the number ofdoors and windows was reduced to an

absolute minimum. The common

features are the courtyards, a rangeof rooms of modest size, staircases

leading to the upper floors, and quitefrequently, wells to supply water.

The age of the lower city of Moenjo¬daro can be clearly judged wherestack-like masonry columns are seenstanding on the floors of rooms inthe houses. These are the brick

linings of the wells dug in later timeswhen the houses below had alreadyfallen into ruins and been covered

with deposits up to the top of thewells. Looking down into a well is acommon enough experience, butseeing a well from the outside, likea water jug, is intriguing andirresistibly reminiscent of Alice inWonderland.

Walking south down the CentralStreet one passes acres of the un-excavated mound arriving at an areawith a community well. This area had

been the scene of the massacre of

the innocent people of Moenjodarowhen a horde of Aryans attacked thecity and rang the death-knell of thismost remarkable culture.

A short distance further south is the

dyer's shop where we see a numberof shallow pits capped with bricks tohold the vats of chemicals and dyes.From there the Central Street leads

to an area where the reduced size of

the residential quarters indicate it tobe the sector of the working class andthe poorer people.

South beyond that point the moundextends much farther but has been

left intact for future excavations. On

the eastern edge of the lower citythere is considerable evidence of mud-

embankments and terraced structures

obviously raised to protect the metro¬polis from inundation during monsoonfloods of the river Indus.

Various art objects have been

^H^^^^^flM

fl AW . ^M

W^ «. - *- fl]

1 k *-

^^v flj

i> mHv Hfli

1 1 í5p fl*^B flk i

^^i fli ^mw^ ^Tr fl ^'^Jm. ^* il ¿ fli

^^flJL ^^^flfl^^fl^^ _^flfl

2 ; Photo Frances Mortimer © Rapho, Pans ; 3 : Photo Guy Thomas © I. Biltgen, Pans ; 4 : Photo Dept. of Archaeology and Museums, Pakistan

found at Moenjodaro including a largenumber of burnt clay male and femalefigurines, models of birds and min¬iature representations of animals.

The females figurines are bejewelledand wear pannier-like head-dresses,some of which are stained with smoke

perhaps because they served asincense burners. These figurines aresupposed to represent the MotherGoddess whose cult was widespreadin the contemporary cultures of theMiddle East.

The male figurines are usuallybearded and nude. They probablyalso represent some kind of deity.The terracotta figurines are modelledby hand and painted flesh-colour.Noteworthy among the male figurinesis a steatite bust of a nobleman or

King-Priest wearing a loose robeengraved with a trefoil pattern in relief.Such a pattern seems to carry somedivine or authoritative connotation as

it occurs on the Bull of Heaven found

at a Sumerian site, and dates to thetime of Gudea, ruler of Ur about2200 B.C.

Trefoil patterns also occur on someEgyptian antiquities of the secondmillennium B.C. At Moenjodaro suchpatterns can also be seen on a largesteatite head which might have beenan amulet or a protective sign againstthe evil eye, worn by some priest ora monarch. This enigmatic patternand the sedate bearing of the malebust have impressed the archaeologistsenough to assign him the title of King-Priest.

Sculptural art shows further diversifi¬cation in the small bronze figurine ofa dancing girl standing with her rightarm akimbo, and her left hand restingon her left thigh. She is naked, hasa rather ugly face and is wearinga necklace with three pendantshanging over her burgeoning breasts.

Two thick bangles are seen on herright arm above the elbow while aspiral ornament covers the wholelength of her left arm.

But the best examples of the plasticart of Moenjodaro uncovered up tonow are no doubt the many magnifi¬cent seals bearing life-like figures ofanimals. These include the Brahmani

bull, the short-horned bull, buffalo,tiger, rhinoceros, crocodile, and alsomythological creatures like the unicorn,a human figure with horns and a tail,and a horned tiger.

Besides these animals and goblinsdepicted on seals, there are alsoseveral miniature replicas of monkeysand squirrels carved with a masteryof natural detail. In their more light- . _hearted moments the sculptors also 1 Qmodelled toy bullock carts and ' **domestic animals for the amusement

of children.

The seals found at Harappa and

CONTINUED PAGE 38

GREAT WORLD CIVILIZATIONS

INDUS SUMER EGYPT ANATOLIA

The Indus Valley Civiliz¬ation (Pakistan) reachedits economic and cultural

zenith between 2500 and

1500 B.C. On this double

page we indicate some ofthe great ' civilizations ofAsia, Africa, Europe andAmerica which also flour¬

ished at the time. It is

interesting to note that,thanks to the 7000-year-old tree-ring samples pro¬vided by the bristle-conepine in California, it hasbecome apparent thatCarbon-14 dating methodshave been consistentlyunderestimating the datesof monuments. It is now

thought, for example, thatthe megalithic graves ofBrittany, France antedatethe Pyramids by as muchas 2,000 years and thatStonehenge was beingbuilt in England at aboutthe same time as a sculp¬tor in Moenjodaro wascapturing in bronze thegraceful movements of theyoung dancer shownabove.

Photo Dept. of Archaeologyand Museums, Pakistan

Sargon of Akkad, whoseportrait in bronze (above)was discovered at Nine¬

veh, became king of Meso¬potamia in about 2370B.C. The rich Tigris-Euphrates valley had al¬ready been cultivated forsome 2,000 years by theSumerlans (their namederives from the Sumer

valley, in southern Meso¬potamia). Skilled crafts¬men, artists and traders,they established a soph¬isticated urban civiliz¬

ation which was emulated

by the Akkadians in north¬ern Mesopotamia. At thetime of Sargon, Meso¬potamia had trade linkswith the Indus valleycities and with the Medi¬

terranean countries. Cer¬

tain objects, in particularseals and jewellery, seemto indicate influences

from the Indus ValleyCivilization. The Meso¬

potamia n pictographicscript, which first ap¬peared about 3500 B.C.,was modified over the

centuries to develop intothe cuneiform script (nowdeciphered) used through¬out the Near East until

about 1000 B.C.

Photo © Unesco - Rencontre,Lausanne - Pans

During the period of TheOld Kingdom (about 2800-2200 B.C.) an aristocraticculture developed in Egyptunder the Pharaohs of the

lllrd, IVth, Vth and Vlthdynasties which saw aflowering of the arts andsciences (in particularastronomy and medicine).The great pyramids ofGiza were built during thisperiod and sculpture wasmarked by a finely ex¬pressed realism. Above,the kneeling figure of ahigh-ranking official, datingfrom the Vth dynasty,today in the Cairo Mu¬seum. About 6,000 yearsago, Egyptian civilizationwas beginning to developin Africa along the Nilevalley, in the regions bor¬dering the Red Sea, inSudan and Ethiopia. Thedevelopment of papyrusduring the 3rd milleniumB.C. encouraged thespread of a form of writ¬ing which developed intohieroglyphics (decipheredin 1822). Countless textsinscribed on stone and

other materials have en¬

abled experts to recon¬stitute every phase of thisamazing civilization whichretained its distinctive cha¬

racter even during the peri¬od of Roman occupation.

Photo © UnescoLausanne - Paris

Rencontra

Shortly after 2000 B.C.the Hittites established

their capital city Hattusas(today Bogazkoy, 150 km.east of Ankara) in themountainous region ofAnatolia in central Turkey.The royal archives of theHittites contained thou¬

sands of clay tablets whichhave provided detailedinformation concerningHittite economic, religiousand legislative structures,the names of kings anddates of battles and

treaties. Mesopota¬mian tablets indicate that

a civilization existed in

Anatolia, dating from3000 B.C., and refer tothe time when Sargon ofAkkad came to the throne

of Mesopotamia, as wellas to a people speakingthe Hatti language whowere later displaced bythe Hittites. The Hittite

empire collapsed underpressure from neighbour¬ing peoples and the lastsurvivors established small

feudal enclaves in Syriawhich were finally ab¬sorbed into the risingAssyrian empire. Warriorsand legislators ratherthan artists, the Hittites,

nevertheless, produced finerock-carvings for theiropen-air sanctuaries. Skil¬led metal-workers, theyalso fashioned copper orbronze animal figurines,such as the stag above.The stag was a favouritesubject with Hittite artistsand was no doubt a cult

figure.

Photo © Ara Güter, Istanbul

14

500 TO 1 500 B.

CHINA AEGEAN SEA IRAN

This striking Chinesebronze vase is some 3,500

years old. It dates fromthe era of the Shangdynasty (1500 to 1027B.C.). Many bronze tripodvases, like the wine vessel(chia) shown above, or inother shapes, have beenfound on the site of the

Shang capital of An-yangin the province of Honan.Most are richly decoratedwith extraordinary, intri¬cate designs and motifs.The perfection of theShang bronzes has neverbeen equalled. At An¬yang, archaeologists haveunearthed thousands ofbones inscribed with an¬cient Chinese characters.

Already at the time of theShangs, Chinese civiliza¬tion had a very long past,marked by a highly homo¬geneous cultural tradition,of which the most ancient

site in the Huang Ho(Yellow River) plain be¬came the cradle of Chi¬

nese Bronze Age culture.

Photo from "ArchaeologicalDiscoveries in New China",Pekín. 1972

The standard text-book

dates of the ancient civili¬

zations of pre-ColumbianAmerica are being pushedback as a result of the

latest scientific research.

Thus, the Olmecs, usuallysaid to have flourished in

Mexico from about 800

B.C., are now consideredto be much older as

much as 1500 B.C. and,

according to some autho¬rities, even older (2000B.C.). The Olmecs, or"hule (rubber) people",established themselves in

the plains bordering theGulf of Mexico. Remains

of large mud buildings ofa later period have beendiscovered at the greatcentres of La Venta, TresZapotes and San Lorenzo-Tenochtitlan. Among laterOlmec art treasures that

have come down to us

are a number of colossal

heads (carved in importedstone, some weighing upto 18 tons) and countlessclay or jade objects andfigurines. The Olmecsdevised a calendar, anarithmetical system and aform of hieroglyphic writ¬ing and their culturalinfluence spread through¬out Mesoamerica (Mexicoand central America).Photo shows Olmec figu¬rine (13 cm. high) modelledin clay.

This gold funerary maskcovered the face of a

hero of old buried some

3,600 years ago. It wasdiscovered at Mycenae, Inthe Péloponnèse, Greece,by the German archaeolo¬gist Heinrich Schliemannat the end of the 19th

century. The tombs open¬ed by Schliemann contain¬ed fabulous art treasures

gold funerary masksand ornaments, clay andbronze vases and wea¬

pons inlaid with gold andsilver. Among them wereobjects of Cretan originand others made by artistsfrom mainland Greece.

Mycenaean civilizationwas at the height of itsglory in about 1600 B.C.and its influence extended

to Macedonia, Cyprus,Syria, Asia Minor and evento Sicily. Tablets found atMycenae and at Knossos,Crete, inscribed In thefamous "Linear B" script,contain some of the oldest

known texts in the Greek

language.

Photo © Unesco - RencontreLausanne - Pans

Photo José Verde, Mexico

This female figurine(24.5 cm. high) is a fineexample of the terracottaart of ancient Iran bet¬

ween 2000 and 1000 B.C.

It was discovered at Tur-

eng Tepe, a site in nor¬thern Iran. Four thousand

years ago, this regionwas an Important tradingcrossroad linking Mesopo¬tamia, the Indus valleyand the countries border¬

ing the Caspian Sea. Iranis the seat of a veryancient civilization and

from 7000 B.C. settle¬

ments appeared in theZagros mountains to thenorth of the Persian Gulf.

Tablets with numerical no¬

tations dating from about3500 B.C. have been

unearthed as well as

later tablets inscribed in

proto-Elamite writing. Bet¬ween 4000 and 2000 B.C.

Iranian communities, atSusa, Sialk and Jiyan inparticular, produced paint¬ed pottery of a remarkablebeauty and finesse.

Photo © Archaeologia Viva,Paris

Far right, visitors at the Moenjodaro Museum

examine an artist's impression of the ancient city

at the height of its prosperity. Right, a once bustling

street in the lower city of Moenjodaro. Preserved

for centuries beneath a protective layer of soil,

the excavated city now faces the triple threat of a

rising water table, corrosion by salts and floodingby the river Indus.

5»*v" 11

* flUVt

MOENJODARO

IN PERILUnesco alerts world opinion

to an imminent catastrophe

by Hiroshi Daifuku

16HIROSHI DAIFUKU is head of Unesco's

Division for the Development of the CulturalHeritage. The author of many studies onanthropology, conservation and museography,he has contributed frequently to the "UnescoCourier".

'HANGE is ever present

and stability an illusion. Even conti¬nents, once thought to be immovable,are known to be great rafts floatingabove the liquid core of the earth.Their movements affect the rise and

fall of mountains, the shape of the

coastline, and only the relatively shortlifespan of man makes them seemimmutable.

Streams form, change their coursesor disappear. Temperature changes,from those of long duration lastingmillenia to changes which take placein a few minutes (due to a passingcloud), the growth of bacteria, lichens,woody plants and trees, all contributetowards the change of the environ¬ment.

Preservation of a site or monument

represents, therefore, a constant strug¬gle to stay or to slow this process.Inevitably, if the climate is harsh andthere are great variations in tempera¬ture and humidity, as in the case ofthe site of Moenjodaro in Pakistan,the task becomes difficult and costly.

It is a semi-arid region with an aver¬age annual rainfall of about 12 cm.(under 5 inches). It is a region of lowrelief and as a result the Indus river,

through silting, raises its bed abovethe plain (during the rainy season themean level of the river is about

3 metres above the level of the site).The river thus forms great loops, suc¬ceeded by ox-bow lakes, and con¬stantly shifts its bed. At times itmoves away from Moenjodaro; atothers (as at present) it turns towardsthe site to threaten its eventual

destruction.

The construction of a dam (the

Sukkur Barrage) nearby and thedevelopment of irrigation agriculturehave contributed to a rise of the water

table. While irrigation agriculture canbe productive in semi-arid lands,

drainage in a nearly level flood plainis very difficult, and all too frequentlyirrigation results in the rise of aheavily saline water table.

In the southern reaches of the Indus

the area of canal-irrigated and cul-

Photo © Paul Almasy, Paris

tivated land which has been seriously

damaged by water-logging and salinityis close to 5 million acres. In the area

of Moenjodaro, low-lying land al¬ready glints with salt and lies aban¬doned. At the site itself the level of

the water table varies seasonally from1.5 to 3.9 metres below the surface,

reflecting the rise and fall of the levelof the river, and seasonal irrigations.

Through capillary action water risesabout 2.4 metres (8 feet) above theaqueous layer and introduces salts

into the bricks composing the monu¬ment. During the day high tempera¬tures and low humidity result in rapidevaporation leaving behind, in thebricks, a deposit of salts.

These salts (of which sodium,magnesium and potassium sulphatesand carbonates are among the mostdestructive) crystallize. Those foundbelow the surface exert pressure onthe bricks, causing fragments to flakeoff, progressively destroying the sur¬face and weakening the interior. In

solution the salts help to corrode andweaken the structure of the bricks.

Thus, the preservation of Moenjo¬daro is one face of a problem invol¬ving the development of the entireLarkana region. Anxiety about thefuture of Moenjodaro increased asthe bricks began to show greater wear.

At the request of the Pakistan Gov¬ernment, Unesco sent a team of

experts to Moenjodaro in January 1964.The mission was led by Dr. HaroldJ. Plenderleith, then Director of the

International Centre for the Study ofthe Preservation and the Restoration of

Cultural Property in Rome. He wasaccompanied by Mr. C. Th. de Beau¬fort, a Dutch engineer with con¬siderable experience in working ondesalinization problems in Iraq and byDr. Caesar Voûte, a Dutch geologist.The team reviewed with Pakistani

specialists all the problems involvedas well as the measures which had

been taken.

Despite severe handicaps, thePakistani Department of Archaeology

maintained the site for many years,using mud-plaster and mud-brickcappings to help leach the salts away.When the plaster is moist the salts

within the bricks will migrate to themud until the two solutions attain an

equilibrium. The removal of the now

contaminated mud and its replacementby desalinized mud helped to lessenthe concentration of salts and pre¬

vented the formation of crystals on orjust below the surface.

This did not, however, arrest eros¬

ion as constant new supplies of salt

were introduced from the groundwater and the Department lacked themeans to attack the basic source of

contamination, the rise of the watertable.

The measures to be followed in the

preservation of the site are known

and include: deflection of the river;

lowering the water table; removing orleaching out the salts found in thewalls of the buildings. All of theseare costly. The decision taken to aidthe Pakistani Government in raisingfunds through voluntary contributions

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

18

MOENJODARO IN PERIL (Continued)

from the international community willmake possible the following measures:

the construction of a slantingbarrier in the river which will

deflect the current and turn the

river away from the site;

the construction of a ring of tubewells surrounding the excavatedarea to lower the water table;

salt removal and conservation.

The first measure required posesfew problems, the technology is knownand the results predictable. Insofaras the lowering of the water table isconcerned, there are some unknowns.The use of tube wells in Pakistan to

lower a saline water table has alreadybeen carried out by the governmenton a large-scale agricultural projectin the Punjab.

The discharge of water from thewells at Moenjodaro can eventuallycontribute towards land irrigation.Nevertheless the process must becarried out with care. The loweringof the water level may result in com¬pression and the effects, particularlyon massive structures, must be care¬

fully observed so as to avoid damageand ensure the preservation of thesite.

Once the water table is sufficientlylowered the area found within the ringof tube wells will be progressivelydesalinized. This too may be a longprocess as the best methods to beused have still to be worked out.

The salts found in the monuments

dissolve readily which should make iteasy to leach them out. On theother hand the fired brick is not of

good quality and the mud mortarwould wash away if too much wateris used.

A common method used to extract

salts from stone or brick is to cover

it with wet paper pulp. The saltsmigrate to the pulp which upon drying,is removed. The experimental use offresh mud (uncontaminated with salt)instead of paper pulp by the Depart¬ment of Archaeology showed somepromise. But it was abandoned as

it became a veritable labour of Sisy¬phus since the salts were constantlyreplenished from the ground waterbelow.

Once the tube wells are in oper¬ation, however, it should be possibleto carry out thorough leaching of thesalts and to follow this by ordinarymaintenance.

The rapid deterioration of the bricks,

noted by the Archaeology Department

Colour pages

and by the experts sent there shouldthen cease. But work to ensure the

continued survival of the monument

will have to be continued on a longterm basis. Obviously the water table

cannot be permitted to rise again, sothe tube wells will have to be checked

and the machinery periodically renew¬ed (experience in the Punjab gives anaverage life of 20 years).

Airborne salts, while not an importantfactor must also be taken into account.

Worn bricks must either be replacedwith sound ones or somehow consoli¬

dated.

I NTERNATIONAL assist¬

ance to solve the problems of Moenjo¬daro has taken many forms. In 1969,leading archaeologists under the chair¬manship of Sir Mortimer Wheelerexamined several proposals to save thesite. In 1972, Raoul Curiel (France) leda team which reviewed the final con¬

servation project of the Governmentof Pakistan. Early this year, Mr. Zulfi-kar Ali Bhutto, then President of Pa¬

kistan and today its Prime Ministeropened an international symposiumon the preservation of Moenjodaroorganized on the site with Unesco'sassistance.

Practical aspects were not neglectedand in 1972-73, Unesco suppliedequipment for two experimental tube

wells, including pumps which workinside the tubes and thus remove the

need for above surface buildings. Alaboratory equipped by Unesco is beingbuilt by the Pakistan Government andUnesco is providing a fellowship forthe chemist in charge to study thelatest techniques used in other coun¬tries.

Unesco's Executive Board recentlyexamined the joint Pakistan-UnescoMoenjodaro preservation project whichin its first phase will cost an estimated$7.5 million. It authorized Unesco'sDirector-General to launch an interna¬

tional fund-raising campaign with atarget figure of $5 million.

After the work of conservation is

completed, the sale of water from the

tube wells for irrigation and therevenue from tourism will pay theexpenses of maintaining the equipmentand site. But while the measures

foreseen will stop the primary causeof erosion, constant vigilance and carewill be needed if the site is to survive

as a vivid reminder that here was the

birthplace of an ancient civilization.

ART TREASURESOF PAKISTAN

Page 19BEJEWELLED WOMAN. Terracotta

figurine unearthed at Moenjodaro(2500 to 1500 B.C.). The woman isbedecked with necklaces and pen¬dants and garbed in a loin cloth gird¬led by a broad belt with buckle (seealso photo p. 8).

Photo Dept. of Archaeologyand Museums. Pakistan

Page 20ARTIFACTS OF ANTI¬

QUITY. Figures on thispage, with the exceptionof figure (2) come from

I Moenjodaro. (1) Tiny sta-I tuettes of a parrot, mon-

fl^_^ key and squirrels. Somefl| archaeologists believe them

to be children's toys (3) Ter¬racotta four-legged animalwith human head. (4)

| Chessboard and pieces. The¡ great antiquity of this game

is here confirmed. (5) Ter¬racotta female figurine; a basket was originally seton each side of the fan-shaped headdress, but onlythe right-hand one remains. (2) Terracotta figurefrom Pirak (900 B.C.) the only known archaeologicalsite in Pakistan from the 1st millenium B.C.

1/4/5) Photo Dept of Archaeology and Museums. Pakistan

2/3 Photos © C. Jarnge. Paris

THE HAND AND THE LOTUS.

Sacred plant of the ancient Orient,the lotus is a symbol of fertility andpurity. This hand holding a lotus isa work of the Gandhara school of

art which flourished in north-west

Pakistan and Afghanistan betweenthe 2nd and 5th centuries.

Photo © Turab Ah, Karachi Pakistan

Pages 22-23 SUNDOWN INLAHORE. Built

by Emperor Akbar(1542-1605) thegreat palace-fort-tress of Lahore was

richly embellishedby his successorsJahangir and ShahJahan who added

sumptuous deco¬rations and pavilions. Here the setting sun glimmersthrough the marble filigree wall of the Naulakhapavilion built in 1633.

Photo René Burn © Magnum. Pans

Page 24

HILLTOP MAUSOLEUM. The

Makli hill near Thatta, 50 miles east

of Karachi, is an immense necropolisspread out over six square miles withcountless tombs of rulers, dignitariesand commoners. Here, a view of themausoleum of Diwan Shurfa Khan

(1638), one of the most impressiveof Makli's funerary monuments.

Photo © Papigny. ParisPage 25

Photos from

National Bank of Pakistan

LIGHT OF THE WORLD. This

miniature masterpiece is a portrait ofNur Jehan ("Light of the World")wife of Emperor Jahangir Moghulschool painting, 18th century (LahoreMuseum). See article page 27.

POETRY BY THE LAKE. The Prin¬

cess Zebunissa with attendants Mo¬

ghul school miniature painting, 19thcentury. She was the daughter ofEmperor Aurangzeb and was famousas a poet. She is shown here perhapsreading one of her own poems.(Lahore Museum).

Treasures of Pakistan" published by the

/

'

u '/

»X

- ' -s

*'<*$

9-

. T*.ätu

21

t

»

)Z9

%

t »

%

êT%

t : %

t % : t

!

% « (

MM

> *

«

%

%

% * »

t *

4

Jm

* T.

.J?

-

i¿¿tf¿aM¿

-" ~\v

.'-7- .

Ú/Í

POETRY & REALISM

IN MOGHUL

MINIATURE PAINTING

by Mumtaz Hasan

¿LS í * ****£** IAn 18th century miniaturepainting of the greatMoghul Emperor Akbar(1542-1602),now in the Louvre, Paris.

A generous patron of the artshe was the founder of

the Moghul school of art.

OGHUL minia¬

ture painting representsthe finest in the miniature

arts of the Indo-Pakistan

sub-continent. This es¬

sentially Muslim school ofpainting flourished underthe inspiring patronage ofthe Moghul Emperors forwell over two hundred

years from the secondquarter of the sixteenthto the close of the eight¬eenth century.

At its zenith, its famereached such distant

lands as those of Europewhere it aroused the ad¬miration of a master of

the calibre of Rembrandt.

At home, it exercised aprofound influence on alarge number of schoolsof miniature painting,such as the Rajput, «an¬gra, and Deccan Schools.

The art of miniature

painting began in the sub-continent during the later phaseof the reign of the Emperor Humayun, who on his returnfrom Iran brought with him two master miniature paintersof the court of King Tahmasp I Sayyid Ali and AbdusSamad. A host of local artists worked under the supervisionof these masters from Iran. Moghul art was largely a con¬tinuation and an offshoot of the arabesque, two-dimension¬al decorative Iranian School which, in its earlier stages, wasinfluenced by Chinese painting.

The earlier formative stages of Moghul painting, however,were soon followed by a phase of assertive identity whenit showed signs of contact with European art to which itwas most probably introduced by the early Christianmissionaries.

In course of time, the school evolved a vision of realityall its own. It was undoubtedly this vision, pulsating withlife and vigour, that imparted to Moghul art an indivi¬duality which is easy to recognize and easier to appreciate.

In this sense, the Emperor Akbar is the real founder ofthe Moghul school of art. During most of the fifty years

MUMTAZ HASAN is President of the Museums Association of Pakis¬

tan. He has been Pakistan's permanent Secretary for Finance andwas for many years President of the National Bank of Pakistan.Doctor Honoris Causa of the Goethe Institute (Fed. Rep. of Germany)he has always been interested in the promotion of cultural activities.His publications include a study of Iqbal, the great philosopher andpoet who has been called "the spiritual father of Pakistan", and"In Search of Debul", an historical account of the earliest Muslimcity in the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent. He edited the English editionof "The Adventures of Hir and Ran¡ha" from the Punjabi poem byWaris Shah.

of his reign a large number of painters were busy in hisatelier illustrating manuscripts, mostly epics, such as HamzaNameh, Shah Nameh, Tarikh-i-Khandan-i-Taimuriyan andAkbar Nameh and painting portraits of the royal personageand his nobles.

In the manuscripts and album paintings, the Iranian deli¬cacy of detail and linear grace combined with the charac¬teristic Indian palette of varied greens, glowing redsand oranges.

Among the local artists at the royal court were masterssuch as Mansur, Daswanth and Basawan, who illustratedthe Hamza Nameh, but most of their finest work wasproduced in the shape of isolated miniature paintings foralbums, portrait drawings, paintings of animals and flowers,hunting scenes and paintings depicting incidents of courtlife. This was executed in a style which basically wasSafavid, but indigenous in most of its details.

During the reign of the Emperor Jahangir, the natura¬listic tendency was predominant. It is evident in the carefulstudies of animals, birds, flowers and trees executedduring this period, which rank among the most exquisiteexamples of Moghul art.

It was during this period that Moghul art reached thezenith of its glory. Whatever Persian influence had lingeredduring the reign of Akbar, disappeared from the paintingsof Jahangir's time. Besides scenes from nature, of whichthe Emperor was a keen lover, depiction of court life largelyconstituted the thematic component of the paintings o)this period, and the practice of elaborately decorating themounts of paintings came into vogue.

The style of Jahangir's period continued and was per¬fected during the reign of the Emperor Shah Jahan, thebuilder of the Taj Mahal. Technical perfection, uninhibitedyet judicious use of colours, and masterly brushwork arethe outstanding features of the paintings of this time. The-matically, the court and its splendour along with portraitsin groups, of courtiers or dervishes, often dominate theminiatures of Shah Jahan's time.

A new technique of portraiture, which originated duringJahangir's reign and amounted to lightly touching a sketchwith colour or gold, came into its own during this period.It attained nobility, representative character and refinement,although it lacked, to some extent, the vitality of Akbar'stime and the keen interest in life shown by Jahangir'spainters.

It is a tribute to the vitality of Moghul art that even afterpassing its zenith after the reign of the Emperor Shah Jahan,which ended in 1658, it retained most of its greatness, sofar as technique was concerned, till the close of the reignof Muhammad Shah in 1748.

During his reign and that of his predecessor, Farrukhsiyar(1713-1718), painting again became a favourite art at court,but the decline of the Moghul Empire saw artists turningmore and more to Nawabs and Rajahs, the local potentateswho had established independent or semi-independentstates of their own, in search of new patrons and security.At their courts, the imitation of the Imperial Moghul styleflourished for nearly another century.

27

MYSTERY

SCRIPT

OF THE

INDUS VALLEY

One of the world's oldest writing systemsstill resists the efforts of scholars

by Ahmad Hasan Dani

28

AHMAD HASAN DANI is professor ofcultural history and Dean of the Faculty ofSocial Sciences at the University of Isla¬mabad, in Pakistan. He started his career

in the Department of Archaeology 27 yearsago and though he joined the universityservice later, he has continued his interestin archaeology and carried out a number ofexcavations. Author of several books on

archaeology and history, he is editor of thearchaeological bulletin "Ancient Pakistan".

Photo Department of Archaeologyand Museums, Pakistan

HE Indus Valley lies acrossancient migration routes from centraland western Asia to India.

The Indus Civilization introduced

the first urban life in this valley at atime when similar civilizations had

developed on the banks of the Nile

and the Tigris-Euphrates valleys. Suchurban growth was possible because ofa new technical advance in the

Bronze Age when the river valleyscould be made to yield sufficient cropsto sustain the growing human popula¬tion.

This also led to overseas trade and

contacts with distant lands. As a

result, a system of writing evolvedin each region. Each system had acharacter of its own, but the earliest

forms shared a common pattern derivedfrom the pictures of the objects

common in their particular civilizations.

These picture writings, known aspictographs, are not read in the waywe read our alphabets. In order to

specify the meaning it is necessary toassociate one meaning with eachpictograph. Such association simpli¬fies the process of understanding. Tomake it simpler the pictures are re¬duced in outline and only briefsketches express human ideas. In this

way, man developed ideograms tomake his symbols understood byothers. This process of simplificationdiffered from region to region.

As each region had its own lan¬guage, the regional ideograms ex¬pressed the words of those languages.And thus we see simplified picturesrelated to human sounds. Man went

a step further in the evolution of writingwhen he could express not only thevisible objects in writing but also allkinds of sounds. And in time, thepictures actually lost their real visibleshape and meaning. They werereduced to symbols and came to beassociated permanently with sounds.

Each of the three great civilizationshad their own way of evolution.Egypt developed a system known ashieroglyph while Mesopotamia pro¬gressed towards wedge-shaped writ¬

ing called cuneiform. The Indus writ¬

ing is still a mystery and scholars arebusy solving it.

The scripts of the forgotten civiliza¬tions need to be deciphered. The wayto decipherment is either by learningthe value of the symbols which would

Photo Guy Thomas © J. Biltgen, Paris

Most examples of the mysterious Indus valley script consist of short inscriptions on seals usually accom¬

panied by representations of real or fabulous anim als (see back cover) or, more rarely, human figures(opposite page). Inscriptions on copper or pottery tablets have also been found such as the two above,unearthed at Moenjodaro.

give us words, or by recognizing thesounds of a known language, andfinally relating words with sounds.Such a method was possible in the

case of hieroglyph and cuneiformwriting as the discovery of the sameinscription in two or three scripts orlanguages (bilingual or trilingual),enabled the decipherers to get to thesound and finally they were able tounlock these ancient scripts.

The Rosetta Stone with its trilingualinscription helped to reveal the secretsof the Egyptian hieroglyphs. But no"Rosetta Stone" has so far been found

in the Indus Civilization.

Attempts at decipherment however,

have not been given up. There mustbe some other method to decipher anunknown script. After all, symbols arehuman creations in a given context.

If we know thoroughly the culturalcontext and if we can recognize thesymbols in that context and their value,we are on a path that may lead todecipherment.

It is also possible to approach thesubject from another angle. Amongthe many languages spoken today inthe world, some are inter-related and

form a group belonging to one family.The languages of one family behavein a particular way. If the Indus writ¬ing expresses any language belongingto any of the linguistic groups surviv¬ing today, its particular sounds couldbe caught, their behaviour pattern det¬ermined, and this behaviour of sounds

could then be planted on the behaviourof symbols in order to determine whe¬ther the design of the symbols agreeswith one linguistic family or another.

This is a complicated method nodoubt but the computer, it is hoped,

can now help us in finding a solution.But machines work only to the extentthat the human brain instructs them

to, so first we need to examine the

problem methodically.

In the Indus Civilization no longinscriptions have so far been found,but short inscriptions engraved mainlyon seals, sealings and bronze tabletshave been unearthed. Some are

found scratched on pots. The seals

carry the negative of the inscriptionsand it is their impression which givesthe positive reading.

The seals usually carry the figure of __an animal bull, elephant, tiger, uni- /Ucorn, etc. and short inscriptions of

one to three lines usually occupy thetop space.

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

MYSTERY SCRIPT (Continued)

Did the Indus people

speak a Dravidian language?

30

As all the animals face right, it hadbeen concluded that the direction of

writing is from right to left. Thisconclusion is now proved by an over¬writing on a pot in which a left symbolcuts across the right one.

Some of the symbols of the Induswriting are easy to decipher. Theseare short or long vertical strokes num¬bering from one to ten or twelve.The strokes are presumed to representnumbers. But are they just numbers?As they occur in various combinationsbefore and after the symbols, it isinferred that they are used to express

syllabic sounds.

HE nature of the short

inscriptions on the Indus valley sealshas led some scholars to believe that

they are only the names and titles ofthe persons who owned the seals andused them to authenticate documents

or as a trade mark on bales of cotton

or other goods bartered with the landsfar and near. This interpretation is

based on a similarity with the writingof titles in Ancient Egypt.

Other comparisons have revealedsimilarities in the shapes of symbolsand these have been noted on tablets

in places as far away as Easter Islandin the Pacific and on tablets bearing

Hittite hieroglyphic writing.

But similarities apart, there Is noproof that these symbols have thesame sound value in different civiliza¬

tions. It is therefore essential that the

system of the Indus writing should firstbe discovered and then the nature of

this system tested as to its suitabilitywith one linguistic group or another.

Another possible method is to de¬termine the particular linguistic groupto which the language of the Induspeople could possibly be related.Three such claimant groups Indo-Aryan, Munda or Proto-Austro-Asian,and Dravidian have been thoroughlyexamined in this connexion. On

purely historical grounds, the Indo-Aryan group has been left out as theAryans appeared on the scene in thepost Indus Valley period.

Yet some scholars have tried to link

it with the Indus writing while othershave sought connexions between theIndus script and the much later Indian

writing called Brahmi. These attempts,however, have not proved successful,

and neither have efforts to link the

Indus script with Munda, which hasbeen found to be unsuitable on cultural

and linguistic grounds.

A team of Soviet scientists has ana¬

lysed the Indus symbols in a scientificmanner and has tried to read them on

the basis of the Dravidian language (1).

The Dravidian with Brahui as one of

its branches is still spoken in centralBaluchistan. It is known to have been

pre-Aryan in this part of the world andthus offers a possibility. But in themain area of South India where Dra¬

vidian is now spoken, the Indus Civi¬lization is not known to have penetra¬ted.

However, the real difficulty is toestablish the particular form of theDravidian language which may havebeen spoken by the Indus people.All attempts are now concentrated on

reconstructing that language and withits help, deciphering the Indus symbols.

Meanwhile new discoveries in the

Gomal valley of Pakistan, in southAfghanistan and in Soviet Turkmenistanhave shown that during the BronzeAge there was more contact betweenthe peoples of these regions than hadbeen supposed. Not only this factbut other considerations suggest thatthe Altai group of languages may pos¬sibly help to solve the mystery of thelanguage used by the people of theIndus valley nearly five thousand yearsago.

I N an effort to clarify themechanics of the Indus writing, severalattempts have been made to collect

the inscriptions, arrange them in someorder, determine the exact number of

known symbols, specify the beginningand end signs, and follow the definite

form of the symbols as they undergochanges.

The latest work of this kind, com¬piled by Asko Parpóla and his coll¬eagues from Finland at the Scandina¬vian Institute of Asian Studies in

Copenhagen, brings together in oneplace the entire material suitablyarranged with the help of a computer.

This is ready-made material whichcould be used profitably by otherwould-be decipherers.

In this work, the total number of

signs listed is 396. Some of the sym¬bols are easily recognizable. Theyinclude the homo-sign, animal signand bird, fish and insect signs.

Others are taken from local flora

such as the mushroom, the p/pa/-leafand flower and probably the tree itself.Some represent objects such as thebow-and-arrow, shrimping net, orwheeled cart, but most of them are

simple lines or geometrical forms.

H

(1) Attempts at decipherment using acomputer have been made since 1964 bySoviet teams in Moscow led by Yu. V.Knorozov.

IOWEVER, the signs havetwo main features: some appear invarious combinations and others are

modified by the addition of strokes.The significance of these two featuresis not yet established. It is generallyassumed that they qualify the originalsign in the same fashion as thegrammatical suffixes used with wordsin the Altai group of languages or inDravidian.

In modern Turkish, which belongs to

the Altai group, we have the baseword "coçuk" meaning child. Changesare made by adding suffixes as in thisexample:

"Coçuk" (child) + "lar" = "çocuk-lar" (children) + "iniz" = "cocuk-lariniz" (our children) + "dan" = "ço-cuklarinizdan" (from our children).

Languages which behave in theabove fashion belong to the aggluti¬native language group. If Indus writingbelongs to this group, it should bepossible to analyse it and classify thesymbols under the main signs andsuffixes. These suffixes should indicate

the grammatical behaviour of words.Once the grammatical behaviour isdetermined, it is possible to place thewriting definitely in one linguistic groupor another. But so far, this last stageof classification has not been done in

the case of the Indus writing.

The absence of long inscriptions inthe Indus Civilization writing shouldnot be a bar to its decipherment. Itis possible that some scholar, in aremote corner of South America, Afri¬

ca or China may one day devote him¬self to this task and give us the ana¬lysis that can unravel the mystery ofthe Indus script.

The computer takes a crackat code-cracking

H|ow do experts set aboutdeciphering an ancient, pictographic script?The famous Rosetta Stone, inscribed in hiero¬

glyphic, demotic and Greek characters, provideda key to the secrets of the hieroglyphs of ancientEgypt. But in the case of the Indus script no suchkey has been found and a much longer, morepainstaking study is required involving complexsemantic, phonetic, grammatical, historical,statistical and other factors combined with infor¬

med guesswork.

For almost a decade, four Finnish experts,Asko Parpóla, Seppo Koskenniemi, Simo Parpólaand Pentti Aalto, of the Scandinavian Instituteof Asian Studies, Copenhagen, have been attempt¬ing, with the aid of a computer, to decipher the300 or so signs of the Indus script on the basisof the 2,000 inscriptions on seals found in theIndus valley. Their work is based on the as¬sumption that the Indus script is related toDravidian. This assumption and the interpre¬tations arrived at by the Finnish team havebeen contested by other authorities.

We present below extracts from one of thepreliminary studies "Further Progress in theIndus Script Decipherment", Special PublicationNo. 3, published in 1970 by the ScandinavianInstitute of Asian Studies. They give the laymanan insight into the reasoning used by expertsin an attempt to crack the coded messagesthat have come down to us over some 4,000 years.

7exfs © Copyright. Reproduction prohibited

Jupiterof

the Indus

HE five planets denoted bythe signs

«T .*.#.& *must have been called after their "colours by the ancientDravidians, for the original Dravidian names coincide withthe colours associated with the planets in the Sanskrit andTamil sources: Mars = red; Mercury = green; Jupiter =golden, yellow; Venus = white; Saturn = black.

The above order of the planets can be deduced fromthe weekdays (Tuesday - Saturday) with which they areassociated in later Indian tradition.

"56 l = "& = the red star = Mars = Siva

Jfr = the black star = Saturn = Krsna

the white star = Venus = Balarama

the green star = Mercury = Ganesa

the golden star = Jupiter = Brahma

Jupiter's Sanskrit name is Brhaspati, which is also onename of Brahma, the Creator of the Hindu trinity, calledalso Brahmanaspati, Prajapati or Vacaspati. Since, on theseal above, the god's name is one of the two planet signsthat had not yet been deciphered, it seemed worth .whileto examine whether the scene would fit to what is known

about Jupiter and Brahma.

The man kneeling in front of the horned personage in themidst of the holy pipal or fig-tree (Ficus religiosa) isobviously the god's high priest (note his "crown") and

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

31

COMPUTER CODE-CRACKING (Continued)

corresponds to the sign

*& = an "man, servant"

at the end of the inscription [read from right to left]. Mostprobably the sign

UJ (here "ritually pure")

on the other side of the tree also refers to him. The personin the fig-tree must be the god himself, whose name inthe genitive case precedes the sign

i .if*.The sacred tree of the planet Jupiter is according to the

Sanskrit sources, the asvattha or pipal tree; in Dravidianthis tree is aracu and aracan means besides "king" also theplanet Jupiter. The same tree, usually called udumbara,is the sacred tree of the god Brahma/Prajapati, being asymbol of life and fertility and the place of the soul afterthe death.

In the Brahmana texts we have numerous variations of

the story of how Prajapati created these worlds. They usedto begin by telling that Prajapati hatched himself and thencreated these three worlds, which he then hatched, etc.In the Vedic agnicayana ritual where Prajapati is the centraldeity, he is represented by a golden man; the acts re'atingto this figure are accompanied by verses of "he who wasborn of golden womb". In the Mahabharata it is told thatBrahma was hatched out of the golden egg that lay floatingon primeval waters.

Jupiter is the golden planet, and pon "gold" is also theTamil name of the planet Jupiter. If we allow for a slightdifference of the final nasal, we have a homophone whichwould give a good explanation to the scratch inside the fishin the pictogram

*

32

pun "wound, scratch"

Brhaspati and Brahmanaspati must mean approximatelythe same as Prajapati and be translations into Sanskrit ofa Dravidian epithet meaning "the lord of creation and life".But Brahma also has a name Vacaspati "the lord of speech",and in fact he is the husband of Vac, "Speech, Voice", whois identical with Sarasvati the goddess of wisdom (= Tamilkalai-makal) and the life-giving holy river of north-west India.It is not a mere coincidence that the best Dravidian wordfor (the principle of) "life", uy, uyir, ucir, means besides^life; salvation, reanimation" (= Sanskrit Brahman) and"propagation, emitting semen" (= Sanskrit praja) also"speech" (= Sanskrit vac), the basic meaning being"breath" (= Sanskrit prana), an important concept intimatelyconnected with Brahma/Prajapati.

Brahma and Sarasvati had seven children, the "sevensages" who are the stars of the constellation of Great Bear.The planet Jupiter also has seven children, six sons and onedaughter by Candramasi, Seven persons are seen depictedat the bottom of the seal.

Brahma is represented as riding on a wild goose (hamsa),which symbolizes the soul and the sun, and the Mahabharatatells in several places how Prajapati assumed the shape ofa golden goose, which is the first incarnation of Visnu, thesupreme soul. Also in Tamil literature Brahma is saidto have a swan in his banner. But in the Vedic ritual theanimal specially connected with Prajapati is the horse, theforemost symbol of sun and fertility of the Aryans. Thevahana or "vehicle" of the planet Jupiter is a yellow horseor goose. (Is the unclear object in the seal a goose?)

The planet Jupiter holds in his hand a lotus, and is some¬times represented as sitting on a lotus. The lotus is, likethe fig tree, an important symbol of fertility (of kantal, kanta,katta "bulbous root of lotus" and kanta "male, husband")and also the seat of Brahma, who according to one legendsprang from a lotus that came out of Visnu's navel. ThatJupiter was a god of fertility like Prajapati is evident alsofrom the great importance that was attached to thefavourable position of Jupiter in the case of marriages inpost-Vedic times.

The significance of the human-headed ram on the seal isnot yet clear.

The

mark

of

the tiger

HE Indus seals usuallyhave in addition to the pictographictext a design of an animal. The

ancient Tamil kings, gods, tribes, etc.,had totemic emblems depicted in their

flags, seals, houses, etc., consistingmostly of different kinds of animals.

Ancient Tamil literature has preserved

a most interesting account of the useof these seals. It is said that mer-

The

priestessand

the drum

II T would be difficult to draw

a recognizable picture of the round

tampa drum, but everybody wouldrecognize that fr$ is a picture ofa drum.

But in order to show that it is not

the hour glass-drum (támara or utukka)that is meant, the other side is left

open to show that a drum beaten on

one side only is concerned:

X or XThe intended meaning "priest (ess)"

also apparently influenced the form of

chandise was sealed with emblems of

respective kings. . . Goods unloadedfrom ship to shore and vice versa, and

the articles gathered on the shore,

were sealed before letting them go

out of the customs yard. The act of

sealing the bags is explained in thewords pulí porittu puram pokki, which

means "the tiger (sign) was stamped

and was passed out". The extant

Indus sealings were stamped on clay

tablets attached to bales of goods.

The word venkai means in Dravidian

both "kino tree" and "tiger", bothtotemic emblems of clans. The colour

of the tiger's stripes bears a strongresemblance to the colour of the

flowers of the kino tree. "It was on

account of this resemblance that the

young maidens of the Kuravar phratry

shouted out 'Tiger, Tiger' when they

were plucking the flowers of the venkaitree." This looks almost like a des¬

cription of a fairly common scene

depicted on the Indus seals, where a

person is squatting in a tree and

extending one of his arms with some

object (flower?) in the hand towards

a tiger beneath him.

the sign, which was probably associatedwith some special priestly act depicted

on the seal, opposite, showing a female

figure with a bull's head and tail and

legs, reaching towards a horned tiger.

On this seal the text, unfortunately

broken, contains the sign Ps

with a tail added:^^CThis tail is otherwise known from

the sign^-^Ç, a variant of vfi/, bothof which occur in contexts indicating

a meaning "priestess".

If £^ is tampi/nampi (used also

as god's epithet like ]& )

and V%) is its feminine form, theword is tankai/nankai "younger sis¬ter; woman of distinction". The tail

added to the pictograph of course

associates it with the priestess's dress,

but also probably has a phonetic value.The word for "tail" in Dravidian is val,

which has an exact homophone val

meaning "(ceremonially) pure, white,holy", used with special reference to

virgins. In Egyptian the word w' b"(ordinary) priest" literally means"pure, clean (person)".

Some Indus pictograms

and their possible meanings

SignObject

depicted

Dravidian

name of

the object

The

homophone

intended

Meaning

Vship ota utai " possession ".

" own " = gen¬itive suffix

(= in Tamil)

® potter'swheel

ali al " to rule "

" ruler "

ifo hailstones ali

* fish min min " star ", Mars

/\ roof mey mai " black

a two previoussigns combined

mai-min " black star "

Saturn = Krsna

% flower of the

silk-cotton

tree

iia il " house "

tr-ir extended arms,

prayermana man

" king "

w drum beaten on

one side only tampatat^mpa/inampi

" priest "," noble "

-^ wing irai irai " lord "

IM lute

lyreyal yal

" divine

musician ",(Narada)

© wicket in

a hedgekatavu katavul " god ", " divine "

a) seated person ayya " father "

f comb pentika penti" woman "

" female "

A> two signs abovecombined

amma" mother(goddess)

1 number one oru, or " (one) person "

j% scorpion tel tel" bright "," learned "

m two previoussigns combined tell-or

" learned

person "

* man an

" man "," servant "

*$scorpion andprevious signcombined

tell-an" learned

man "

33

Views of the majesticavenues, ornamentallakes and fountains and

pavilions of the Shala-mar Gardens, Lahorelaid out in the 17th cen¬

tury during the reign ofShah Jahan. In the 18th

century the Gardenswere despoiled of theirmarble and other decor¬

ations, but under thecare of Pakistan's De¬

partment of Archaeolo¬gy and Museums thisgem of Moghul land-scape architecture isgradually being restoredto its former splendour.

Photo Guy Thomas © Paplgny Parla

THE GLORY

THAT WAS

SHALAMAR

Restoring the splendours of Lahore's17th century garden of delights

byMuhammad

Ishtiaq Khan

34MUHAMMAD ISHTIAQ KHAN is GeneralDirector of Archaeology and Museums inPakistan. He has excavated at the 8th-cen-tury Arab city of Banbhore near Karachi andother important sites. His mam field of studyis Islamic archaeology.

"Aat^ garden", observed Em¬

peror Babur, founder of the Moghul dy¬nasty, "is the purest of human pleas¬ures". His successors Humayun,Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan trueto their tradition stinted neither time

nor money in satisfying their cravingfor beauty.

The Shalamar Gardens, laid out near

Lahore at the command of EmperorShah Jahan, express the pure aesthe¬tic taste of Moghul landscape archi¬tecture.

They thus embody the Moghul con¬ception of a perfect garden: a deli-

ciously cool and pleasant atmosphere,the murmuring waters of canals, calmmirrored surfaces of ornamental tanks,

splashing fountains, rippling and sing¬ing cascades and the sombre forms

of swaying cypresses.

The name "Shalamar" has been vari¬

ously interpreted, most popularly ofall as "abode of bliss" or "light of themoon". The most plausible interpre¬tation, however, seems to be that the

word is a corruption of "Shalimar",from "Shali" (rice paddy) and "Mar"(black loamy soil) in the Kashmiri lan¬guage.

fl*

I

"Shalimar" therefore meant "black

loamy soil for rice-growing". Butexactly when the gardens at Lahorecame to be given the name Shalamaris not known.

In 1639, Ali Mardan Khan, a Persiannoble and Governor of Lahore, infor¬

med Emperor Shah Jahan that he couldcall on the services of expert canal

engineers, and sought permission tobuild a canal from the river Ravi to

Lahore.

His request was granted, funds wereplaced at his disposal and within twoyears the "Shah Nahar" or Royal Canalwas completed with the help of MullaAlaul Mulk Tuni, an expert in hydro¬

logy.

In 1641 Khalilullah Khan, a noble of

Shah Jahan's court, was directed bythe emperor to select a suitable siteon the newly dug canal for laying outa garden. The site he chose was onthe old bed of the river Ravi.

On October 31, 1642, exactly oneyear, five months and four days afterthe foundations had been laid, the

Emperor Shah Jahan paid his firststate visit to the completed gardens.

A typical Moghul garden, the Sha¬lamar at Lahore is surrounded by a

high battlemented wall, enclosingcanals with running waters, large tankswith fountains, rippling cascades, and"Khayabans" or shady promenades. It

:*.-

was laid out in three descending ter¬races from south to north covering

some forty acres. Originally, the ter¬races were entered through an elegantgateway pierced in the western wall ofthe lower terrace. In this manner the

cascades faced the visitor and new

delights were revealed as each ter¬race was surmounted.

While the upper terrace is nearly15 ft. higher than the middle terrace,the difference in level between the

middle and the lower terrace is only5 ft. Within the upper and lower terra¬ces, each measuring 290 yds. square,the symmetrical garden plots are divi¬ded by intersecting canals into foursquare parterres. The 20 ft. broadcanals are paved and contain rows offountains in red sandstone and marble.

Tanks containing fountains are placedat the intersections of the canals.

The middle terrace measuring 290yds. by 84 yds. is subdivided length¬wise into three parts. The central part

contains the great tank over twohundred feet across and having morethan one hundred fountains four

pavilions and the great cascade. Thisis the most spectacular feature of thegarden. The tinkling music of the foun¬tain jets and their falling sprays res¬embling masses of diamonds, the rip¬pling and singing cascades and thesweet fragrance of flowers create anatmosphere little short of magical.

Photo © Vautier Deoool. Paris

The original names of the terraces"Farah Bakhsh" (Bestower of Plea¬

sure) and "Faiz Bakhsh" (Bestower ofPlenty) clearly indicate that while inthe upper terrace only flowers andsweet scented shrubs were planted, themiddle and lower terraces were reser¬

ved for fruit trees. The eastern and

western parts of the middle terracewere composed entirely of rosebeds.Cypresses, poplars and chenar treeslined the sides of the "khayabans" orraised brick pavements, transformingthem into beautiful shady avenues.

Historians of that time record that

within the gardens were plantedfruit trees of every season andclimate, such as mango, cherry, apri¬cot, peach, apple, almond, quince,seedless mulberry and sweet and bitterorange. Roses, tulips, irises, cyclamen,crown imperials, lilies, pinks, narcissus,jasmine, lilac, lotus and many otherflowers bloomed exquisitely.

The canal waters, brought from theriver Ravi, entered the gardens fromthe south, rippled over the great cas¬cade and flowed into the main tank on

the middle terrace. After splitting intothree cascades, they passed into thelower terrace canals and eventuallyflowed out of the northern side of the

Shalamar Gardens.

"The garden contains so many build¬ings" wrote a 17th century historian,Muhammad Salih, "that when the Em¬peror, along with the royal harem, en-

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

35

SHALAMAR (Continued)

camps there not a single tent need bepitched".

The upper terrace alone has eightbuildings, including the royal "Aram-gah" (resting place) whose middleroom has a beautiful cup-shaped mar¬ble basin with a fountain "like a foam¬

ing spring". Another building on itseastern side and now known as "Naq-qar Khana", or place of fanfare, wasoriginally the "Jharoka-e-Daulat Khana-e-Khas-o-Am" or Balcony of the Hallof Private and Public Audience. On

the western side of the terrace is the

"Khwabgah" or sleeping chambers ofthe Empress.

The arcaded building on the nor¬thern side, overlooking the great mar¬ble cascade and the two lower ter¬

races, is the "Aiwan" or Grand Hall,

the walls of which were originallydecorated with panelling and frescoes.

Each corner of this terrace is occu¬

pied by a "burj" or tower comprisingan octagonal chamber surmounted bya red sandstone octagonal pavilion.

In the south-east corner of the mid¬

dle terrace is the "hamam" or royalbath comprising a "Sard Khana" (coldbath) "Garm Khana" (hot bath) and alarge "Rakht Khana" (dressing room).Originally the interior of the bath wasdecorated with delicate pletra-durawork.

IN THE

REALM

OF THEGREAT

MOGHUL

Chaynes, belles & guilt banners...

For four years, from 1615 to 1619, Sir Thomas Roe diplo¬mat and author, served as English ambassador to thecourt of the Moghul emperor Jahangir, father of ShahJahan who built the Shalamar Gardens at Lahore. The

journals kept by Sir Thomas and the reports and lettershe despatched from the Moghul court are enriched withvivid descriptive accounts and copious details of localcustoms. Below a short extract from "Embassy of SirT. Roe to the Court of the Great Moghul" (edited withan introduction by William Foster. London 1899) :

This day was the Birth of the king and solemnized as agreat feast . . . The tyme was spent in bringing of hisgreatest Eliphantes before him, some of which, beeingLord Eliphants. had their chaynes, belles, and furniture

of Gould and siluer, attended with many guilt bannersand flagges. and 8 or 10 Eliphantes wayting on him

On the eastern and western fringesof the great tank are two pavilionsoriginally built in red sandstone butnow lime plastered. In the centre of

the great tank approached by redsandstone causeways is a raised plat¬form called "Mahtabi" or "of the moon"

since it was used for sitting out ofdoors to enjoy the moonlight.

On the lower terrace is the "Chini-

Khana", a three sided "abshar" orwaterfall. Its three marble-faced walls

have small niches in which goldenflower vases were placed in the

daytime and camphored .wax candlesat night.

Since the lamps make an endlesschain of light and create colouredreflections on the water sheet fallingon the opposite walls it is also called

"Dip Mala", or chain of lights.Facing it is a three-arched ruined

pavilion, the "Daulat Khana-e-Khas" orHall of Private Audience of the Em¬

peror. Its dado was in marble and

its walls were originally decoratedwith frescoes.

The beauty of the garden was en-

36 -mi»

J. '"}

clothed in gould. silke and situer. Thus passed abouttwelve Companyes most richly furnished, the first havingall the plates on his head and breast sett with rubyesand emeraldes, beeing a beast of a woonderfull stature

and beauty. They all bowed downe before the king,making reuerence very handsomly, and was a showe as

woorthy as I euer saw any of beasts only. The keepersof euery Chefe Eliphant gaue a present. So with gratiouscomplements to mee he rose and went in.

Palaces, orchards & bazaars...The text presented below is taken from the journal ofFray Sebastien Manrique, an Augustinian missionary,entitled: "Itinerary of the missions in Eastern Indiatogether with a brief account of the great and wealthykingdom of the Emperor and Grand Moghul Shah Jahan,and other kings who, during their reign, aided the missio

naries of Saint Augustine". During these missions FrayManrique spent 13 years (1629-1643) travelling throughoutthe Indo-Pakistan sub-continent. The extract given hereis from an English edition of his journal. Volume II,Oxford, 1927.

This city of Laor [Lahore] is the second city of the MoghulEmpire, famous both as having been... a place of residence

for its monarchs, and also owing to its wealth and gran¬deur. This is augmented by its being adorned with magni¬ficent Palaces, delightful gardens, and fruitful orchards,

full of reservoirs and springs of excellent water. Theriches discernible in its main street, or as the inhabitants

style it. Bazaar of the Souk, were such as already provedthe advantages derived by these regions from the richest

and most powerful parts of Europe, especially on thisoccasion, when the Emperor was present for the feast

of the Nauruz [New Year], which that year fell duringRamadan, with its thirty days fast.

joyed by many Moghul rulers, and itwas here that the Princess Zebunnisa,

talented daughter of Emperor Aurang-zeb, moved by the rhythmic sound ofthe cascade, composed these verses:

"O waterfall I for whose sake art thou

[weeping?In whose sorrowful recollection hast

[thou wrinkled thy brows?What pain was it that impelled thee,

[like myself, the whole nightTo strike thy head against stone and

[to shed tears?"

The gardens were well looked after

during the Moghul period but after thecollapse of Moghul authority in thePunjab the Shalamar was plundered.A Sikh governor of the province lateron undertook to preserve the gardens.He redug the canals and tanks andrestored the water supply, stopped allploughing within the walls and limeplastered the denuded structures. But

for his belated patronage the ShalamarGardens would have disappeared.

Since the gardens were handedover to the Pakistan Department ofArchaeology, sustained efforts have

been made to preserve the buildings,to restore the gardens to their origi¬nal appearance and to recreate the

former atmosphere.

A phased programme to illuminatethe garden has already been initiatedand a master plan for its preservationand restoration, costing over $2 mil¬lion, has been prepared.

The Government of Pakistan has

already taken steps to execute thismaster plan. When completed it willgo a long way towards reviving theglory that was Shalamar.

ISLAMABAD

modern capitalof

an ancient landSince 1961 a great modern cityPakistan's new capital Islamabadhas risen, Brasilia-like, on thePotwar Plateau between Rawal¬

pindi and ancient Taxilia. Isla¬mabad is a striking achievementof architectural design and townplanning. When completed it willhave administrative, residential,industrial and business sectors,a diplomatic enclave, a sector forspecial institutions, a green-beltarea and a national park with anOlympic village and zoological andbotanical gardens. Designers haveincorporated traditional Islamicstyles in buildings such as govern¬ment offices (left) and the imposinghotel on opposite page. In form,as In name, Islamabad harmonizes

Pakistan's history and traditionswith modernity and innovation.

37

MOENJODARO

MODERN METROPOLIS OF ANTIQUITY

(Continued from page 13)

Moenjodaro bear pictographic inscrip¬tions which have so far defied all

attempts at decipherment. The in¬terpretation of the script is one ofthe greatest problems of the archae¬ology of the Indus valley. The writingconsists of loops, circles, combs,ladders, spoked wheels and a varietyof leaf, fish and other shapes.

Sometimes these symbols appeartantalizingly within grasp, as a formercustodian of Moenjodaro narrating asmall incident pointed out. He once

asked a small boy visiting the Moenjo¬daro Museum whether he could make

out anything from these inscriptions.The boy replied after a moment'sthought that these could be the spareparts of a bullock cart!

The Indus valley script consistingof some 250 symbols, excludingvariants, is considered to be a picto¬

graphic writing, presumably read fromright to left and is judged to be a levelhigher in precision than the hiero¬glyphic script of Egypt, or the cunei¬form script of Mesopotamia.

The signs do not appear to bealphabetic and possibly may representeither syllables, ideograms, or deter¬minatives related to the class of thingsto which the word belongs.

The script does not show anyrelation with the ancient writings ofthe Middle Eastern countries, but itis just possible that its invention was

inspired by the example of the cunei¬

form script of Mesopotamia. At anyrate the discussion remains purelyacademic as long as the script remainsundeciphered. (See article page 28.)

38

OST common ornaments

found at Moenjodaro are necklaces andpendants of semi-precious stones.Decorative faience and paste beadsalso seem to have been fairly popular.Some cornelian beads etched and

marked with designs in white are thesame as those found in Mesopotamiaand Iran, and they undoubtedly provideevidence of trade relations with the

Middle East.

Gold necklaces, armlets, banglesand finger rings were commonly wornby both sexes, while long cornelianbeads, ear-rings and anklets weremeant for women only. Some of theunusually long cornelian beads indicate

advanced techniques of drilling fineand uniform holes through hardsubstances. A feat of such great skillmight have been performed with somedelicate drill of high speed.

Among the many implements un¬earthed at Moenjodaro are stone toolslying alongside copper and bronzetools and utensils. The stone tools

are mostly long chert flakes with worn

and serrated edges, evidently used asknives for cutting meat and vegetables.Stone vessels are few but there are

some alabaster dishes thick and

clumsy in appearance.

Almost a complete series of stoneweights have also been found which

bear a binary ratio. These weightsare made of highly polished pieces ofchert, quartzite, alabaster, limestoneand jasper. Their shapes are cubical,half-cubical, cylindrical and spherical.Very few weights are reported to bedefective in measure, a fact which

signifies a consistency of commercialstandards maintained by the state.

Among the other objects found atMoenjodaro, the gamesmen of carvedstones for chess and games of diceare particularly noteworthy. There isalso a terracotta saucer with a spiralchannel, which is certainly theforerunner of the game of bagatelle.These paraphernalia of indoorrecreation indicate that the ancient

inhabitants led a life of consider¬

able prosperity and pleasure.

There are some cooking pots,agricultural implements, mirrors, sta¬tuettes and ornaments made of copperand bronze. The earthenware objectsinclude a wide range of pottery varyingin size from miniature containers for

perfumes and cosmetics to largevessels for animal fodder, storingother products, or for sanitary pur¬poses.

The pottery is mostly wheel-turnedin plain shapes or with decorations in

paints, graffito, etc. The highlyspecialized character is evident fromdecorations on the red ware. The

patterns consist of geometric shapes,as well as stylized human, animal andbird forms and vegetation. Fish-scalepatterns, intersecting circles, pipal leafmotifs and checkerboard designs arefairly common, with some incised andstamped pottery.

The Indus Valley Civilization thusfloats within the ken of knowledge

quite dramatically and disappears withequal suddenness. Between it and

the next important phase in thechronology of the sub-continent thereis a wide gap, which it is the hope ofarchaeologists to fill one day.

Among the causes of the declineand fall of this civilization, scholarsenumerate a progressive desiccation

of the climate of the Indus valley,devastation by floods, some kind ofmysterious epidemic which wiped outthe population, and lastly, but stronglyemphasized, forays of maraudingbands of Aryans, pouring down inwaves from the mountain passes in thenorth and west. Each possibility hasits own merits and arguments, but thedefinitive answer has yet to come.

HE ruins of Moenjodaro,buried beneath the accumulation of

thousands of years, remained in anexcellent state of preservation. But as

soon as they were exposed fromoblivion to the incredulous gaze of the20th century, they were overtaken bythe plague of water-logging and theleprosy of salinity. These two diseasescombined with the threat of erosion

by the Indus river, pose a grim dangerto the very existence of one of the

most remarkable cultural legacies ofthe human race.

The present state of the archaeo¬

logical remains at Moenjodaro hasattracted the attention of specialistsand laymen alike. It is doubtful if anyother country, had it inherited Moenjo¬daro, would have done more for its

preservation than what has been done

so far by Pakistan, despite her tighteconomy.

But saving the ruins of Moenjodarofrom total obliteration is not the

responsibility of Pakistan alone. It isin fact the combined responsibility ofthe entire civilized world.

Tangible arrangements to tackle thisimportant task with the help of Unescoare now in the offing and on completionmay in themselves be a monument tomodern technology and internationalco-operation.

S.M. Ashfaque

and Syed A. Naqvi

Wood engraving by Yuri Kosmyninafter a portrait by M. Abdullayev

NASIMI

poet-philosopher

of Azerbaijan

Imadeddin Nasimi's name is famous as

one of the great poet-philosophers ofthe Muslim world. Born in Shemakka,

Azerbaijan, 600 years ago, his anniver¬

sary has been celebrated in various

parts of the world this year. Specialinternational commemorations were

held in Baku and Moscow last Septem¬

ber organized by the AzerbaijanianAcademy of Sciences with the partici¬

pation of Unesco. "Nasimi's poems",declared the President of the Azer¬

baijanian S.S.R., Kurban Khalilov,"glorify the beauty and joy of life".All his works "are permeated by thisindomitable belief in man and man's

ability to develop spiritually and asserthimself". "Nasimi", he said, "called on

man to reason, fight religious fanaticism

and deliver himself from the psychology

of slavery. "In the article published here

the Soviet writer Vagif Aslanov speaks

of the poetry of Nasimi and its meaningin the world of today.

by Vagif Aslanov

IIMADEDDIN NASIMI, the great Azerbaijanianpoet and an outstanding figure in the poetry and philoso¬phical thought of the Orient was the founder of philosophicalpoetry in the Azerbaijanian language.

At the time he lived and wrote, at the turn of the fourteenthand fifteenth centuries, religious obscuranticism wasdominant and his homeland was ravaged by invasion.Those propagating humanist views, opposing feudaloppression and calling on men to trust in their own powerswere punished by death or imprisonment and all non¬conformist writings were burned.

His surviving poems show that Nasimi had an ency¬clopaedic grasp of the learning of his day. He was apropagator and leading theorist of Hurufism, a mysticpantheistic doctrine which emerged in Azerbaijan at thedawn of the fifteenth century. Its name came from theArab word huruf, or letters.

Hurufism deified numerals, letters and the combinationof letters in words. It regarded letters as the basis ofthe whole universe. It believed that all the letters of the

alphabet, the whole of Holy Scripture and even Godhimself were manifest on the face of man. In Nasimi's

poems we often find such explicit statements as, SupremeGod is himself humanity's son. Nasimi says to his reader:O you in whose face pristine substance is seen, your imageis merciful and gracious God.

Nasimi used the personal pronoun "I" in the genericsense to mean "all men":

Since my ending is eternal and my beginning[primordial,

Primordially and eternally I am the Supreme Being.

He ascribed to man all the epithets of God in theKoran: The thirty-two immortal letters I am; no mate, nolike, no substitute have I.

The founder of Hurufism was the great Azerbaijanianphilosopher Fazlullah Naimi, who set out his doctrinein the treatise entitled Djavidan-Nama (The Book ofEternity). Fazlullah Naimi was executed by Tamerlaine'sson, Miran Shah in 1394. Nasimi then left Baku and wentto Turkey. For spreading Hurufi ideas he was prosecutedand jailed. According to contemporary chronicles, Nasimispent the last days of his life in the city of Aleppo.

It is recorded that a pupil of his declaimed one of Nasimi'sPersian ghazels in the street: To see my face you need aneye that can perceive True God. How can the eye that isshort-sighted see the face of God?

Hearing this heresy religious fanatics arrested the youthand ordered him to name the author of the poem. Theyouth said it was his own poem and he was promptlysentenced to death. Learning of this, Nasimi went to theplace of execution and demanded the innocent youth'srelease, saying that he himself was the author.

The religious fanatics resolved to flay Nasimi alive. Hefaced this terrible death with characteristic dignity. Duringthe torture one of the divines present asked Nasimi: "Yousay you are God. Then why do you grow pale as yourblood drains away?" To which Nasimi replied: "I am thesun of love on eternity's horizon. The sun always palesat sundown."

CONTINUED NEXT PAGE

VAGIF ASLANOV is senior researcher at the Language Institute of theAcademy of Sciences of the Azerbaijan Republic, where he heads theDept. of Comparative Studies of Turk Languages. He recentlycompiled and commented a two-volume edition of works by ImadeddinNasimi (published in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan). A one-volumeEnglish edition has just been published in Moscow by ProgressPublishers.

39

NASIMI (Continued)

Thus Nasimi, whose poems praise truthfulness in manand the nobility and beauty of the human heart and soul,took his place in history as a hero who sacrificed his lifefor a fellow-man, for the triumph of justice.

In his poems Nasimi summons man to know himself andhis own divine nature. He believed that only man cangrasp all the secrets of Creation. In oriental mythologythe legendary Iranian ruler Djemshid, or Djem, had a cupwhich, when full of wine, showed all that was happeningin the world.

Nasimi often calls human reason the cup of Djemshid.The essence of God is hidden in man, the wine in thechalice of Djem is man. Knowledge and reason are thegreatest riches and knowledge gives man strength :

O you who thirst for pearls and gold, for knowledge[strive.

For is not knowledge of man gold and pearls?

And again: He who masters knowledge, O man, is strong.The man of reason who is aware of his divine majesty isthe most precious being in all Creation: O you who call astone earth a precious pearl, is not man who is so fairand gentle also a pearl?

40

I OST religions regard God as the Creator atwhose command "Let there be . . ." the world was made.

Extolling man's beauty and powers, Nasimi regards manas the maker of all things: Since I am primordial and eternal,I am the Creator and the creature of the universe.

Nasimi deeply believed that God's command "Let therebe..." was prompted by the power of human speech:This command by which all things were made possessedthe power of our voice and speech.

While proclaiming man to be God Nasimi does not idealizeman and elevate him to Heaven but, on the contrary,placing God within man, he particularly stresses his materialorigin: Why are fire and water, earth and air given the nameof man? Entranced by the beauty of man who embraces"the four elements and the six dimensions", the poetexclaims: Praise him who combines the earth with fire andair. praise the artist who impresses this form upon waterl

In many of his poems he voices the thoughts and suffer¬ings of a man gripped by earthly passion for a womanby whose beauty he is entranced.

Nasimi used poetic forms widespread in the Near andMiddle East: the ghazel (love poem), rubai (quatrain), qasida(ode), and mesnevi (rhymed couplets), forms of classicArabic and Persian poetry. His brilliant poems had adecisive influence on the later development of these formsin Turkish poetry.

Ghazels are traditionally love poems about a beautifulwoman, about the lover's anguish, the grief of separationand the joys of meeting. Nasimi, however, treats socialand philosophical themes in his ghazels, which may runto forty or fifty couplets. The distinctive features of hispoetry are its combination of lyric verse and philosophicalthought, its rich and bold rhythms, harmonies, alliterationand internal rhymes.

Even in his love poems Nasimi boldly opposed religiousscholasticism and stated his own philosophy. Comparinghis beloved's dark locks to heresy or disbelief and herfair face to belief, he notes how sweetly they live together:If disbelief is not belief, how did I come to find the light offaith within the circle of your faithless locks? And again./ say to him who does not know the secrets of your locksand face, they are the very essence of belief and disbelief.

Praising nature's charms, man's power and nobility andthe grandeur of reason, fostering love of man and settinga high value on human dignity, Nasimi raised to a newheight the ideas of humanism in oriental poetry? He strovefor man's moral purity, taught norms of humanist moralityand called on man to reject duplicity, villainy, ignorance,greed and conceit and to do good deeds and to respect

his fellow-men. Nasimi proudly proclaimed: / have no sharein the enslavement of man. God knows I speak the truth.

Nasimi's poetry affirmed life and urged man to relishall the joys in this world. He categorically rejected theworld beyond and considered it Heaven to merge withone's beloved in this world:

Do not thirst for happiness in the world beyond the[grave,

For Paradise and its fair maidens is to meet your[lovel

For this reason he reproached the preachers and legis¬lators:

O preacher, do not seek to scare me with tomorrow!The sage for whom tomorrow comes today, is

[unafraid.Although they promise us God's wine and honey in

[Paradise,It is your lips I need for there I find both honey and

[wine...

The freedom and happiness, dignity and majesty of manform the leitmotif of Nasimi's poems. Of the grandeurand dignity of man he wrote: Both worlds within mycompass come, but this world cannot compass me. Thepoet was in love with the world in which he lived and inwhich his poetry lives on. Not for one moment did he wishto exchange for Paradise the moments of joy with hisbeloved in this world:

My rival says: Give me today's lovel Take tomorrow[for yourself!

An hour spent with my love for a whole epoch I shall[not exchange.

Nasimi urged people to place no trust in empty promises:O heart reject vain promises! Let us spend this momentin pleasure I Yesterday has gone, tomorrow is unknown,and so this moment is pleasure.

NlASIMI's poetry is rooted in the social, politicaland cultural development of the countries of the Near andMiddle East, and especially of his homeland of Azerbaijan.It expresses the poet's own extremely complex outlook.

There are occasional notes of pessimism; alongside hisfaith and confidence in man's might and goodness thereare expressions of distrust. Nasimi complains that in thisdeceitful world there is no true friend and no true love:

Where is the friend who is true to his promise, where thebeloved who utters the truth? In one quatrain he says:The men of this world have become scorpions and snakes.Evil is widespread throughout the world. Where shall onefind a true friend of pure heart? Where is the man ofconscience and justice?

Sometimes he curses the world, observing that unworthyfools hold the reins of government while men of learningand noble ideas have no say. Nevertheless the poet doesnot lose hope and he trusts that justice will triumph: Onightingale, do not grieve on parting from the rose! Bepatient!. Winter shall- pass, the garden fill with blossomand spring shall come.

Many of his verses are aphoristic, expressing moral sen¬timents and maxims. Do not grasp the hand of foes, thoughsweet as honey it may be... How can a man who is corruptyour proper worth assess?... It is hell with villains toconverse.

Nasimi was fully justified in ranking himself alongside theunsurpassed lyric poets of Persian literature, SalmanSaveji and Faridaddin Attar. Valuing riches of thespirit above all else, Nasimi declares: / am he to whom asservants shahs and sultans come, I am he whose watchmanand custodian is the sun.

Addressing his readers Nasimi declares:

Call me a man who has immortal life,For I immortal am and ever alive.

BOOKSHELF

PAKISTAN

Unesco collection

of representative works

Poems by Faiz

Faiz Ahmed Faiz. Translated with

an introduction and notes by V.G.Kiernan. Contains the Urdu text of

each poem with a romanized transli¬teration and literal prose rendering.Allen & Unwin, London, 1971. 288 pp.(£3.75).

Javid-Nama

Sir Muhammad Iqbal. Translatedfrom the Persian with introduction

and notes by Arthur J. Arberry.Allen & Unwin, London; HillaryHouse, New York, 1966. 151 pp.($4.75; £1.35).

Poems from the Divan of Khus-

hal Khan Khattak

by Khwushhal Khan. Translated fromthe Pashto by D.N. MacKenzle.Allen & Unwin, London; HillaryHouse, New York, 1965. 257 pp.($6.75, £2.10).

The Adventures of Hir & Ranjha

by Waris Shah. Translated from thePunjabi by Charles Frederick Us-borne. Edited with an introduction

and notes by Mumtaz Hasan. PeterOwen, London 1973. (£3.25).

The Shore and the Wave

by Aziz Ahmad. Translated from theUrdu by Ralph Russell. (UnescoAsian Fiction Series.) Allen & Unwin,London (£2.60).

G3 ra

Lb M ca

Other Unesco books

The Pakistani Way of Life

by I.H. Qureshi. (Way of life series)Heinemann, London, 1956.

Compulsory Education in Pakis¬tan

by Muhammad Shamsul Huq. (Stud¬ies on compulsory education).Unesco, Paris, 1954; OP.

Mission on the Teaching of So¬cial Sciences in Pakistan

by André Bertrand. (Reports andpapers in the social sciences).Unesco, Paris, 1955, 40 pp. OP.

20 years of educationfor world understanding

Unesco's Associated Schools Project,which promotes education for internationalco-operation and peace in over 900 schoolsin 62 countries, has just celebrated its20th anniversary. To mark the occasion,representatives of many of these schoolsmet in Levis (Quebec) recently to evaluateprogress and chart the project's future.While supporting current themes such asthe aims and work of the U.N. family oforganizations, human rights and studies ofother cultures, the conference called for

greater emphasis on programmes dealingwith development, the environment andcommunity problems.

Unesco-Lebanon centre

to study modern man

Unesco and the Lebanese Government

are to set up an international centre atByblos (Lebanon) for the study of modernman and problems of development. Itsresearch will cover education, science,technology, man's relations with his environ¬ment, co-existence between peoples ofdifferent cultures, languages and socialsystems, confrontation of ancient andmodern civilizations, and the promotion ofpeace and security.

Restoration aid

for Venice

A recently published Unesco bookletdescribes restoration work undertaken in

Venice helped by international efforts topreserve the city's treasures, reports the"Unesco Chronicle" in its October 1973

issue. Over 150 photographs show resto¬ration accomplished with aid from Italy,Australia, France, Fed. Rep. of Germany,Switzerland, U.K. and U.S.A.

Jamaican students

launch new quarterly

A group of Jamaican high school studentshas just launched a quarterly magazinethat tells the world about their country'speople, culture and crafts. "Peenie Wallie"(a Jamaican name for firefly) is publishedfrom Cornwall College, at Montego Bay.

Tape recorders and cameras in hand,"Peenie Wallie's" staff seek out people andthings that tell the story of Jamaica pastand present. They aim to broaden theireducational experience while producing aquality magazine.

International Institute

for ComparativeMusic Studies

In our issue "Music of the Centuries"

(June 1973, page 23) it was stated thatthe International Institute for ComparativeMusic Studies and Documentation was

founded in Venice in 1970. In fact it was

a branch of the International Institute, un¬der the title "Istituto Internazionale de

Música Comparata", that was set up inVenice in 1970. The Institute itself was

established in Berlin in 1963 with Alain

Daniélou as Director and has since been

financed by the Senate of West Berlin.The Institute edits and produces in Berlinthe International Music Council's quarterly,"The World of Music" and prepares theUnesco record collections: "Musical Antho¬

logies of the Orient and Africa", "MusicalSources" and "Musical Atlas".

Flashes...

48 countries have organized campaignsto eradicate malaria; IjOOO million anti-ma¬

larial tablets are distributed every year inAfrica alone.

A map of Industrial pollution in GreatBritain has been published based on na¬tion-wide data gathered by 15,000 young¬sters aged 10 to 15.

The country best suppled with news¬papers is Sweden with 534 copies per1,000 persons, followed by Japan (511 co¬pies) and Iceland (448) reports Unesco'sStatistical Yearbook for 1971.

Analysis of core samples from holesdrilled to a depth of 6,200 feet in theSouthern Ocean bed suggests that NewZealand drifted away from Australia bet¬ween 60 million and 80 million years ago.

M World industrial production (mining,manufacturing, electricity and gas) in 1971increased by 4% over 1970, according tothe latest (1972) U.N. Statistical Yearbook.

U.N. Human Rights anniversary stamp

On December 10, 1948, the United Nations GeneralAssembly adopted and proclaimed the UniversalDeclaration of Human Rights as "a common stan¬dard of achievement for all peoples and all nations".To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Decla¬ration, the U.N. Postal Administration has just issuedthe special stamp shown here. Tenth U.N. stampin the Human Rights series, it Is printed in 0.40 and0.80 Swiss Fr. and 8 and 21 cent denominations.

For details of all U.N. stamps write to the UnescoPhilatelic Service, Place de Fontenoy, 75700 Paris.

41

Letters to the Editor

THE SCOURGE

OF CHILD LABOUR

Sir,

Your article "40 million child-workers

in the world today" (October, 1973)was timely and deals with a deeplydisturbing situation. May 1 take up thequestion of what is being done, andwhat should be done, about what yourightly describe as "the scourge ofchild labour".

The International Labour Office paper(their report IV (1) of 1972) from whichyou quote has now led to the adoptionof a new Convention at the Internatio-

tional Labour Conference in June this

year. I was able to attend part of theconference as a private individual, andwas much moved by the effort ofthe representatives of governments,employers and trade unions to puttogether a sound and workable Conven¬tion to limit child labour.

But although this Convention setsnew standards intended to be of world¬

wide application, it will only becomeeffective as nations decide to ratifyand enforce it. And the very fact thatso much exploitation of children takesplace in cottage industries, street tra¬des, agriculture, domestic service, andsmall, non-unionised factories, meansthat enforcement is quite difficult. Itseems likely that even those countrieswho do ratify the Convention willinvoke escape clauses which permitthem to exempt from control preciselythose occupations where the majorityof young children are at work.

So unless ordinary people in allcountries take a lively interest in whattheir own government is doing, in thelight of the new Convention, to stopdamage to the health and future ofchildren by excessive and unsuitablework, it is unlikely that anything veryeffective will be done.

May I therefore urge each of yourreaders to try and get hold of a copyof the new (1973) International LabourConvention on "Minimum Age for Ad¬mission to Employment, and in any caseto try to persuade the government ofhis country to help to assure the futurehealth of its citizens by effectivelyabolishing the use of children in workwhich damages their health and poten¬tial.

Thank you again for drawing attentionto this very important problem.

Jim Challis

Canterbury, Kent, U.K.

CHILDREN IN PERIL

Sir,

I have just read "40 million child-workers in the world today" (October1973 issue). The practices exposed inthis article are terrifying especiallywhen we read of children being em¬ployed in the manufacture of fireworks.In France, the employment of childrenunder the age of 18 in the manufactureof fireworks was forbidden by a decreedating back to 1836. The dangersinvolved with fireworks are in quite adifferent category to those involved intasks such as weaving, spinning,sewing, embroidery, metalwork, leather-work, making carpets, clothing, shoes,

toys, etc. To the risk of burns andthose from the handling of toxic sub¬stances for the children you mentionedas working in glassworks and foundriesmust be added the serious risk of

explosions. I do not recall ever havingseen such facts reported in any of themass media. Thank you for publishingthis courageous article which will, Ihope, put a stop to this dangerousexploitation of children.

Georges AngeraudParis, France

SHALLOW ATTACK 7

Sir.

I have been requested by thecommittee representing all churchesof various denominations in Wootton

Bassett to write to you concerning thesupplement: "Copernicus as Told toChildren" in your April 1973 issue.

The committee are concerned that

what appears to be an unbelievablyshallow attack on Theology as suchsupported by various assumptions inthe name of science has been publishedin a magazine such as yours. Webelieve that such an article can onlyconfuse the minds of children and

would not seem to be representativeof the many other excellent articleswhich appear in your magazine.

P.M.O. Giles

Wootton Basset, U.K.

CATCHING UP

WITH EVENTS

Sir, .

The "Unesco Courier" is indeed a

useful magazine. It provides up-to-dateand accurate information of world-wide

events and developments. It enablespeople particularly students and teach¬ers to catch up with world events.I especially appreciated your April1973 issue on Copernicus and itschildren's story. I am still a studentand find it difficult to get your magazinebecause of foreign currency problems.

Tara Duong TeBeng Trabek High School

Phnom Penh, Khmer Republic

WORLD'S DEBT

TO PASTEUR

Sir,

I was very happy with your issueon Copernicus because it helped mein my studies of international scientificcollaboration.

I can only regret that your magazinedid not devote a whole issue in 1972

to the commemoration of the 150th

anniversary of the great French scientist,Louis Pasteur (1822-1895).

This anniversary was widely marked,especially In France and the SovietUnion. In all major cities of the U.S.S.R.ceremonies were held and a specialscientific conference was jointly arrang¬ed by the U.S.S.R. Academy of Scien¬ces, Academy of Medical Sciences,Ministry of Public Health and the Gama-leya Institute of Epidemiology andMicrobiology.

Pasteur's services to mankind are

immense in terms of medical theory,its practical application and (few people

are fully aware of this) in promotingintensive co-operation among theworld's scientists. What man could not

achieve over the centuries to advance

all walks of life, wrote the great Russianscientist Kliment A. Timiryazev, Pasteurdid in his lifetime.

A. Yefremenko

Gamaleya Institute of Epidemiologyand MicrobiologyMoscow, U.S.S.R.

BACK TO BOSSU ET 7

Sir,

Your number on the origins of manAugust-September 1972) was an out¬standing achievement. I have sinceloaned my copy to several friends whohave found in the articles answers to

many of the questions put to them bytheir young children on this subject.This first-rate piece of science popu¬larization will help to train young mindsto think rationally. I am surprised thatthe Bernese Monday Group of SchoolMothers (Letters page, January 1973)should protest against scientific discov¬eries that are contributing to our know¬ledge of man as an animal species.Every time fossil discoveries confirmthat we belong to the order of primates,going back into the most distant past,must we bring out Bossuet's theorythat the world was created in the

autumn of the year 4004 A.D. ("Dis¬cours sur l'Histoire Universelle"), orquote the first chapters of Genesis to"enlighten" people?

Renée Fournier

Bayonne, France

SOS FROM

PLANET EARTH

Sir,

Day after day articles on pollutionappear in international publications. Itis clear that we, the younger genera¬tion, must fight to ensure that ourchildren will enjoy a cleaner world thanthat in which we live. I would like to

appeal to young people the world overto join in an International campaignusing letters, telephone calls and othermeans of communication. Every daywe should remind people that planetEarth is making a last cry for help.I think it is up to Unesco to provideyoung people with the means to carryout such a campaign.

David G. Cross

Palma Soriano, Cuba

SPARK OF LEARNING

Sir.

Your November 1972 issue on the

crisis in schools and in education in

general deeply impressed me. Resolv¬ing this crisis is one of the most urgenttasks for our generation. But one cannever overemphasize the vital role ineducation of individual imagination.Virtually every kind of work calls forimagination and each great discoveryis the fruit of an imaginative mind. Yetwe still do our best to stifle it in the

child, in whom it flourishes so richly.We can never remind parents andteachers of this fact too often.

Peter SchwaningerSchaffhausen, Switzerland

UNESCO COURIER INDEX 1973

January

ONLY ONE EARTH (B. Ward). World policy for the environment(L. K. Caldwell). The limits to growth (A. Peccei). Limits to thelimits to growth (G. Myrdal). Environment and political commitment(Unesco round table). Mediterranean oil pollution (C. Munns).Animal world of Ugo Mochi. Pollution problem No. 1: under¬development (J. de Castro). Myth of ecological equilibrium(M. Ozorio de Almeida). Resources of the biosphere (N. Timo-feyev-Ressovsky). Art treasures: Persian deity (Iran).

FebruarySCIENCE AND MYTH (P. Auger). Unesco science prizewinners(D. Behrman). Enigma of the Thracians (M. Stancheva). T.V. viasatellite (G. Naesselund). Africa and technology (A. Lankoandé).Americans read more than Europeans (H. Steinberg). Profile ofworld translations. Art treasures: Lady of Baza (Spain).

March

THREE FACES OF ART (J. Havet). Art in the west (M. Dufrenne).New realism. Art in the socialist countries (B. Köpeczi).Computer art. Art in Asia, Africa and Latin America (M. Dufrenne).Music's new notations. Art treasures: Golden Buddha (Burma).

AprilIN THE FOOTSTEPS OF COPERNICUS (J. Bukowski). Thefoundation of modern science (O. Gingerich). The making of a newuniverse (O. Pedersen). Special supplement: Copernicus as toldto children (J.-C. Pecker). Cultural revolution of the Renaissance(P. Rossi). Copernicus, Galileo and Giordano Bruno (V. Cappel-letti). New vision of the universe (R. Maheu). Art treasures:God of the Cyclades (Greece).

MayJIGSAW PUZZLE OF DRUGS. Unesco and the world fight againstdrugs. Special Unesco Inquiry: Education vs. drug abuse;Experiments in six countries; Mass media and the drug question;Harmfulness of cannabis. Don'ts of drug education (G. Bird-wood). World drug situation (I. Bayer). Drugs and society(M. Hicter). Art treasures: Mystery sculpture (Mali).

June

MUSIC OF THE CENTURIES (B. Nettl - M. Freedman). Editorial(A. Daniélou). Crisis in Asian music (Tran Van Khê). Beethoventames the jungle (D. Shostakovich). Angel of the Maracas(A. Carpentier). Music of India (colour pages). Unesco and music.African music (A. Euba). Music of Tibet (I. Vandor). Delightsof music (al-Farabi). Art treasures: Magyar pottery (Hungary).

JulyTHE THREAT TO PRIVACY. Global U.N. Inquiry: Human rightsand privacy; Attack on private life; Electronic ears; Hidden eyes;Lawless technology; Techniques for probing the mind; Interna¬tional standards for privacy. World of data surveillance (Unescostudy). The ruins of Mari (A. Parrot). Armenia's lost manuscripts(D. Fiks). Art treasures: Regal Amazonian (Brazil).

August-SeptemberMETEOROLOGY. Unlocking secrets of tomorrow's weather(K. Langlö). 50 world weather records. Is the climate changing(H. H. Lamb). Scientific armada in the Atlantic (Y. V. Tarbeev).Making the weather pay off (D. Behrman). India's leading researchrôle. 8 pages for youngsters: ABC of meteorology; Build yourown weather station. Short guide to weather-speak (F. Le Lion-nais & R. Clausse). Drought over Africa (J. Dresch). Forecastingdrought and floods (J. Namias). Tropical cyclones (P. Rogers).Life-saving hillocks of Bangladesh. Weather lore (R. Clausse).Weather-wise proverbs. Seasons of the Nile (A. El Sawi). Arttreasures: Tlaloc, the rain-giver (Mexico).

October

40 MILLION CHILD WORKERS (ILO & Unesco inquiry). Unescoand human rights (P. Juvigny & M.-P. Herzog). Science, society,racism (G. Glezerman). Frobenius and Africa's cultural history(E. Haberland). African art (colour pages). Youth's rights andresponsibilities (T. Patrikios). Marriage, majority, vote. Humanrights and the postage stamp. Art treasures: Curled up concen¬tration (Indonesia).

November

'PORTUGUESE' AFRICA. Struggle for independence (B. Davidson).U.N. vs. the "last colonial empire". Culture and independence(A. Cabrai). Makonde art. U.N. mission to liberated Guinea-Bissau (H. Sevilla Borja). Unesco aid for African liberation move¬ments (G. Fontaine-Eboue). Education in Portuguese territoriesof Africa (E. de Sousa Ferreira). Colonialism and decolonization(M.H. Aryubi). Art treasures: Lost face from the Chimu (Peru).

December

PAKISTAN: 5,000 YEARS OF ART & CULTURE. Cultural heritageof Pakistan (S. A. Naqvi). Moenjodaro and the Indus ValleyCivilization (S. A. Naqvi & S. M. Ashfaque). Preservation of Moen¬jodaro (H. Daifuku). Arts of the Indus (colour pages). Indusmystery script (A. H. Dani). The Shalamar gardens (I. Khan).Moghul miniatures (M. Hasan). Imadeddin Nasimi, Azerbaijanianpoet (V. Aslanov). Art treasures: Hittite sculpture (Turkey).

Where to renew your subscription & order other Unesco publicationsOrder from any bookseller or write direct to

the National Distributor in your country. (See listbelow ; names of distributors in countries notlisted, along with subscription rates in localeurrency, will be supplied on request.)

AUSTRALIA. Publications : Educational SuppliesPty. Ltd., P.O. Box 33, Brookvale, 2100, NSW; Perio.dicals: Dominie Pty. Limited, Box 33, Post Office,Brookvale 2100, NSW. Sub-agent: United NationsAssociation of Australia, Victorian Division 5th floor,134/136 Flinders St., Melbourne (Victoria), 3000.

AUSTRIA. Verlag Georg Fromme & C'., Arbeiter¬gasse 1-7, 1051, Vienna.BELGIUM. "Unesco Courier"Dutch edition only: N.V. Handelmaatschappi] Keesing,Keesinglaan 2-18, 2100 Deurne-Antwerpen. Frenchedition and general Unesco publications agent: Jean deLannoy, 112, rue du Trône, Brussels S. CCP 3380.00.

BURMA. Trade Corporation Na (9), 550-552 Mer¬chant Street, Rangoon. CANADA. InformationCanada, Ottawa. (Ont.). CYPRUS. MAM". ArchbishopMakarios 3rd Avenue, P.O. Box 1722, Nicosia. CZE¬CHOSLOVAKIA. S.N.T.L., Spalena 51, Prague 1(permanent, display); Zahranicni literatura, 11 SoukenickaPrague 1. For Slovakia only : Alfa Verlag - Publishers,Hurbanovo nam. 6, 893 31 Bratislava - CSSR. DEN¬MARK. Munksgaards Boghandel, 6, Nórregade, DK-1165, Copenhagen K. - EGYPT (ARAB REPUBLICOF). National Centre for Unesco Publications, N* 1Talaat Harb Street, Tahrir Square, Cairo; LibrairieKasr El Nil, 38, rue Kasr El Nil, Cairo. ETHIOPIA.National Commission for Unesco, P.O. Box 2996, AddisAbaba. FINLAND, Akateeminen Kirjakauppa, 2 Kes-kuskatu, Helsinki. FRANCE. Librairie de l'Unesco,7-9, place de Fontenoy, 75700-Paris, CCP. 12598-48.

GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REP. Deutscher Buch-

Export und Import Gmbh, Leninstrasse 1 6, 701 Leipzig.FED. REP. OF GERMANY For the Unesco Kurier

(German ed. only): Bahrenfelder-Chaussee 1 60, Hamburg-Bahrenfeld, CCP. 276650. For scientific maps only:GEO CENTER D7 Stuttgart 80, Postfach 800830.Other publications: Verlag Dokumentation, Postfach 1 48,Jaiserstrasse 13, 8023 Munchen-Pullach. GHANA.Presbyterian Bookshop Depot Ltd., P.O. Box 195,Accra; Ghana Book Suppliers Ltd., P.O. Box 7869,Accra; The University Bookshop of Ghana, Accra;The University Bookshop of Cape Coast, The UniversityBookshop of Legon, P.O. Box 1, Legon. GREATBRITAIN. See United Kingdom. GREECE. Anglo-Hellenic Agency, 5, Koumpari Street Athens 138;

HONG-KONG. Swindon Book Co., 13-15, LockRoad, Kowloon. HUNGARY. Akadémiai Konyvesbolt,Váci u. 22, Budapest V; A.K.V. Konyvtarosok Boltja,Népkoztársasig utia 16, Budapest VI. ICELAND.Snaebjörn Jonsson & Co., H.F., Hafnarstraeti 9, Reykjavik.

INDIA. Orient Longman Ltd., Nicol Road, BallardEstate, Bombay 1; 17 Chittaranjan Avenue, Calcutta13; 36a, Anna Salai, Mount Road, Madras 2; B-3/7 AsafAli Road, New Delhi 1 ; Sub-Depots: Oxford Book& Stationery Co. 17 Park Street, Calcutta 16; andScindia House, New Delhi; Publications Section, Ministryof Education and SocialWelfare, 72Theatre CommunicationBuilding, Connaught Place, New Delhi 1. INDONESIA.Indira P.T., Jl. Dr. Sam Ratulangie 37, Jakarta. IRAN.Kharazmie Publishing and Distribution C*., 229 Danesh-gahe Street, Shah Avenue, P.O. Box 1 4-1 486, Teheran.Iranian National Commission for Unesco, Avenue Iran-chahr Chomah No 300, B.P. 1533, Teheran. IRAQ.McKenzie's Bookshop, Al-Rashid Street, Baghdad ;University Bookstore, University of Baghdad, P.O. Box75, Baghdad. IRELAND. The National Press, 2,Wellington Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. ISRAEL.Emanuel Brown, formerly Blumstein's Bookstores,35 Allenby Road and 48, Nachtat Benjamin Street,Tel-Aviv; 9, Shlomzion Hamalka Street Jerusalem.

JAMAICA. Sangster's Book Stores Ltd., P.O. Box366, 101 Water Lane, Kingston. JAPAN. MaruzenCo. Ltd., P.O. Box 5050, Tokyo International 100-31.

KENYA. The E.S.A. Ltd., P.O. Box 30167, Nairobi.KOREA. Korean National Commission for Unesco,

P.O. Box Central 64, Seoul. KUWAIT. The KuwaitBookshop Co., Ltd., P.O. Box 2942, Kuwait. LIBERIA.Cole and Yancy Bookshops Ltd., P.O. Box 286, Monrovia.

LIBYA. Agency for Development of Publication& Distribution, P.O. Box 34-35, Tripoli. LUXEM¬BOURG. Librairie Paul Brück, 22, Grand-Rue, Luxem¬bourg. MALAYSIA. Federal Publications Sdn. Bhd.,Balai Berita, 31, Jalan Riong, Kuala Lumpur. MALTA.Sapienza's Library, 26 Kingsway, Valletta. MAURI¬TIUS. Nalanda Company Ltd., 30, Bourbon Street,Port-Louis. MONACO. British Library, 30, Biddes Moulins, Monte-Carlo. NETHERLANDS. Forthe « Unesco Koerier » Dutch edition only : SystemenKeesing, Ruysdaelstraat 71-75, Amsterdam-1 007. Agentfor all Unesco publications : N. V. Martinus Nijhoff,Lange Voorhout, 9, The Hague. NETHERLANDSANTILLES. G. C. T. Van Dorp & Co. (Ned Ant.). N.V.,Willemstad, Curaçao. N. A. NEW ZEALAND.Government Printing Office, Government Bookshopsat ; Rutland Street, P.O. Box 5344, Auckland; 130,Oxford Terrace, P.O. Box 1721, Christchurch; AlmaStreet, P.O. Box 857 , Hamilton; Princes Street, P.O.

Box 1104, Dunedin; Mulgrave Street, Private Bag,Wellington. NIGERIA The University Bookshopof Ife, The University Bookshop of Ibadan, P.O. Box286; The University Bookshop of Nsukka;The UniversityBookshop of Lagos; The Ahmadu Bello University Book¬shop of Zaria. NORWAY. All publications : JohanGrundt Tanum (Booksellers) Karl Johans gate 41/43,Oslo 1. For Unesco Courier only: A.S. Narvesens Littera-turtjeneste. Box 6125, Oslo 6. PAKISTAN. TheWest-Pak Publishing Co. Ltd., Unesco PublicationsHouse, P.O. Box 374 G.P.O., Lahore; Showrooms:Urdu Bazaar, Lahore, and 57-58 Murree Highway,G/6-1, Islamabad. Pakistan Publications Bookshop,Sarwar Road, Rawalpindi. Mirza Book Agency 65 ShahrahQuaid-e-azam, P.O. Box N* 729, Lahore-3 PHILIP¬PINES. The Modern Book Co., 926 Rizal Avenue,P.O. Box 632, Manila D-404. POLAND. All publica¬tions : ORWN PAN Palac Kultury i Nauki, Warsaw.For the Unesco Courier only : RUCH, ul. Wronia, 23,Warsaw 10. PORTUGAL. Dias & Andrade Ltda,Livraria Portugal, rua do Carmo 70, Lisbon. SINGA¬PORE. Federal Publications Sdn Bhd., Times House,River Valley Road, Singapore 9. SOUTHERN RHO¬DESIA. Textbook Sales (PVT) Ltd., 67 Union Avenue,Salisbury. SRI LANKA. Lake House Bookshop,1 00 Sir Chittampalam Gardiner Mawata P.O.B. 244Colombo 2. SUDAN. AI Bashir Bookshop, P.O.Box 1118, Khartoum. SWEDEN. All publications:A/B CE. Fritzes Kungl. Hovbokhandel, Fredsgatan 2,Box 16356, 10327 Stockholm 16. For the UnescoCourier: Svenska FN-Förbundet, Skolgränd 2, Box 15050 S- 104 65, Stockholm. SWITZERLAND. Allpublications : Europa Verlag, 5 Ramistrasse, Zurich.Librairie Payot, rue Grenus 6, 1211, Geneva 11, CCP.12-236. TANZANIA. Dar-es-Salaam Bookshop,P.O.B. 9030 Dar-es-Salaam. THAILAND. SuksapanPanit, Mansion 9, Rajdamnern Avenue, Bangkok.TURKEY. Librairie Hachette, 469 Istiklal Caddesi,Beyoglu, Istanbul. UGANDA. Uganda Bookshop,P.O. Box 145, Kampala. SOUTH AFRICA. Allpublications; Van Schaik's Bookstore (Pty). Ltd., LibriBuilding, Church Street, P.O. Box 724, Pretoria. Forthe Unesco Courier (single copies) only: Central NewsAgency P.O. Box 1 033, Johannesburg. UNITED KING¬DOM. H.M. Stationery Office, P.O. Box 569, London,S.E.I., and Government Bookshops in London, Edinburgh,Cardiff, Belfast, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol.UNITED STATES. Unesco Publications Center, P.O.Box 433, New York, N.Y. 10016. U.S.S.R. Mezhdu-narodnaja Kniga, Moscow, G-200. YUGOSLAVIA.Jugoslovensita Knjiga, Terazije, 27, Belgrade; DrzavnaZalozba Slovenije Mestni Trg. 26, Ljubljana.

f

fc

#rr

"M:.

Mystery script of Moenjodaro

The seals of the Indus

Valley Civilization of

Moenjodaro, engraved

4,500 years ago, carry

mysterious inscrip¬

tions that scholars are

still trying to decipher

(see article page 28).

The three seals along¬

side are presented in

two forms : left, the

actual seal with hol-

lowed-out animal fig¬

ure and script; right,

the impression made

by the same seal. For

a curious optical effect

turn the page upside

down and the hollow-

ed-out figures will

appear in relief and

vice-versa.

Photos Departmentof Archaeologyand Museums, Pakistan