Once the winter residence of sultans from illustrious Islamic dynasties, the ruins of a thousand-year-old royal city in southern Afghanistan have become home to hundreds of people who have fled Taliban clashes.
The astonishing ocher clay complex juts from the cliffs along the Helmand River, threatened by decay and encroaching urban sprawl, as well as the makeshift constructions that have grown within it.
Thousands of people have been displaced across Helmand Province since October last year following a surge in Taliban attacks, and while many have resettled in the capital, Lashkar Gah — one of the few areas in the province still under government control — some have joined other refugees in the ruins.
Photo: AFP
Qala-e-Kohna, as it is known locally, or Lashkari Bazar to archeologists, has garnered international attention for its scale, remarkable architecture and murals.
Spread over 10km, the site is the only known winter residence of the Ghaznavid and Ghurid sultans — two dynasties that ruled a region covering present-day Afghanistan between the 10th and 13th centuries who were responsible for spreading Islamic art as far as north India.
“There is no place in the Islamic world where we have something like it — a site as coherent, elaborate and, despite everything, still relatively well preserved,” said Philippe Marquis, the director of the French Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan (DAFA). “It is important to preserve it because we are sure that it will teach us a lot about this period.”
Among the ancient towers, doors and windows have been added, and crumbling walls coated with a clay and straw mixture to strengthen them and plug gaps.
A blue wrought-iron door leads into Agha Mohammad’s cramped two-room quarters that house 11 people, a makeshift cradle for his infant son hanging from a bamboo roof.
“I want the government to give me a place to live. Look at the cracks in the roof. I’m afraid one night it will fall,” said Mohammad, a 33-year-old police officer whose district fell to a resurgent Taliban.
Southern Afghanistan has seen renewed fighting as talks between the Afghan government and Taliban leaders have stalled, and the US prepares to withdraw the last of its troops from the nation by September.
“I should have the support of the government, because I lost three sons serving it,” 48-year-old mother Bibi Halima said from within the palace walls.
“Every house is full of widows,” a neighbor added.
Many of the residents are families of police officers who cannot afford to live elsewhere and have no access to electricity or running water.
An official from the country’s archeology department in Kabul said that there had been reports of land-grabbing at the site, with some families forced to pay rent to local mafia.
For residents, life within the ornate arches and adobe walls of the former royal city is a constant reminder of how the nation has yet to emerge from a cycle of battles against invasion and civil war.
“It is a place for ghosts, not humans,” Khudai Nazar, 54, said.
First explored by the DAFA in the 1950s, the site has seen no conservation work since then.
At that time, archeologists identified the palaces, mosque and other buildings, such as the pottery and craft workshops, as well as ice boxes used for the preservation of fresh food.
One of the most striking excavations was a series of paintings depicting court scenes, extremely rare for an era in which the realistic representation of living beings was already frowned upon in Islamic societies.
Moved to the Kabul museum, the paintings were destroyed or stolen during the Afghan civil war in the 1990s and only photographs remain.
Marquis is now concerned about the impact looters and displaced families would have at the site — as well as the effects of climate change, which could cause the river to flood. On the flip side, reinforcements made from clay and straw that have been added to the partly collapsed towers might have also resulted in their temporary preservation.
“The paradox is that in their own way people are protecting the place, because it is their home,” Marquis said.
He proposed building an “archeological park” that involves displaced people in the conservation process so they can earn a living and settle outside the palace walls, but for author Shah Mahmud Haseat, who has written a book about the citadel, the future of the largely unexplored ruins remains bleak.
“I tried to convince the government to protect the site, but they did nothing. We are really afraid that our history will be destroyed,” he said.
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