BAMYAN - An age-old shrine in Bamyan centre that dates back to the Ghorid period has been inaugurated following its restoration by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) with funding support from the Swiss Development Corporation.

The opening ceremony was attended by Nicolas Plattner, the Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of Switzerland for Pakistan and Afghanistan; Mohammad Asif, the Deputy Governor of Bamyan; Khadim Hussein Fetrat, the Bamyan City Mayor and other representatives from the local government, Bamyan Tourism Development Board, UNESCO and UNAMA.

The Khaja Sabz Push Shrine at Foladi Valley in Bamyan was repaired over a three-month period from May to July this year with local builders hired for the restoration presided by UNESCO consultant Engelbert Praxenthaler and Afghan-German restorer Mujtaba Mirzai.

Located two kilometres southeast of Bamyan centre, the three-mausolea shrine along Foladi road is a living healing shrine for Bamyan folks and pilgrims who continued to visit it with their sick children in tow, leaving written materials and glueing stones to the walls, even while it was undergoing repair and restoration.

The shrine has a circular opening on its western-most wall where Bamyanis insert the head of sick people, especially children, and let them drink water that they boil on an earthen pit stove nearby in one of the un-roofed enclosures.

UNESCO Afghanistan had earlier prioritized the repair of the Khaja Sabz Push Shrine because “the condition of the foundations, especially to the channel side, was precarious.” The shrine’s foundations were getting eroded by a river flowing behind it, compounded by the inadvertent construction of an irrigation canal even closer to its northern foot. Local people also reported to the UNESCO that the trench surrounding the shrine complex had been bulldozed about 10 years ago by looters in search of gold at the graves. Underneath the tower of one mausoleum, illegal excavators had also dug into the conglomerate rock, weakening its foundation.

UNESCO's “Conservation Concept” in restoring the shrine had the UN agency first conducting basic historic research on the location and socio-cultural environment. This was followed by a pre-analysis of the two mausoleums; true-to-size measurements and plan; photographic and graphic documentation; repairs of foundations and support constructions; and the restoration of Mausolea A & B including the reconstruction of their collapsed cupolas.

Paintings were preserved with injections of “Ledan” – an Italian-made high-quality mortar that was used in the restoration of the Michaelangelo and Giotto frescoes.

The UNESCO team employed up to 25 workers. Students of Bamyan University’s Archaeological Department also helped out in the project.

Restoration work used the same kind of river stones used in the original structures for their “natural roughness” and because “the adhesion of the clay mortar is much better as with pebble stones or broken granite rocks.”

The 13th-14th-century shrine is counted by the local tourism board as one of the 20 or so historic sites in the province dating back from the pre-Buddhism and Buddhism eras, and the present-day Islamic era, which need to be preserved.

UNESCO said the necessary conservation measures to safeguard a historic building not only helped improve the expertise of craftsmen involved in the Khoja Sabz Push Shrine restoration, but also “can be seen as a precious contribution to preserve the tangible and intangible cultural heritage in Afghanistan.”

By UNAMA Bamyan