Today’s
Enlightening Entertainment
will be presented
in Dari, English,
French, and German,
with subtitles in Arabic,
Aulacese (Vietnamese),
Chinese, English,
French, German,
Indonesian, Italian,
Japanese, Korean, Malay,
Persian, Portuguese,
Russian, Spanish
and Thai.
Welcome,
art-loving viewers.
Today present the first of
a three part series about
a very special exhibition
that represents
the rich cultural heritage
of Afghanistan.
Throughout history,
Afghanistan has been
connected with
other peoples
and cultures, such as
from China, India and
the Mediterranean world.
Afghan culture and art
have been enriched by
intercultural exchange;
just as well, others
have been enriched by all
that Afghanistan offered.
The exhibition,
“Afghanistan:
Surviving Treasures,”
includes
legendary treasures from
the National Museum
of Afghanistan in Kabul.
The exhibit centers
around artifacts
from four different sites –
Tepe Fullol, Ai Khanum,
Tilly Tepe, and Begram.
Thousands of years old,
yet still revealing the finesse
of their craftsmanship,
they hold an incalculable
artistic, cultural
and historical value.
These fine works of art
are currently on display
in Germany
at the Bundeskunsthalle
in Bonn.
Just before
the presentation in Bonn,
they have been shown
in the Canadian Museum
of Civilization
in Gatineu, Quebec.
The Deputy Minister of
Information and Culture
of the Islamic Republic
of Afghanistan,
His Excellency
Omar S. Sultan,
spoke about this
treasure trove exhibit during
its opening ceremony
in Bonn, Germany:
Look at these
precious objects
from different parts
of Afghanistan, with
different cultural integrity.
For instance,
you would see objects
from Tepe Fullol,
which are more than
4,000 years old,
but [maintains]
cultural integrity
of the great civilization
of Mesopotamia.
You will see the objects
from Ai Khanum,
which show the strong
civilized integration
from classical
Greek civilization.
You will see the treasures
from Begram
and Tillya Tepe,
with culture influenced
from integration
of ancient China, India,
Persia, Siberia, Greece
and Rome.
Let me conclude
by expressing my hope
that you will
enjoy seeing these objects
as much as we Afghans do.
Thank you very much.
Working as
an archaeologist
for the National
Geographic Society,
Dr. Fredrik Hiebert,
who was also the curator
of the exhibition
in Quebec, Canada, said:
I want everybody
who sees this exhibition
to know that it’s just
as much about
modern Afghanistan
as it is about
ancient Afghanistan.
To have that character,
to save one’s own past,
it’s really important.
The curator
of the exhibition in Bonn,
Mr. Pierre Cambon of
Musée Guimet in Paris,
shared the following:
What connects the various
components together,
in fact, first of all,
these are the pieces
that have been safely kept
in the safes
of the National Bank
in 1989.
These are the famous
hidden treasures,
the Bactrian gold, and
the most beautiful pieces
of the galleries
of the National Museum
of Kabul.
This being Ai Khanoun,
Tillya Tepe, Begram,
d'Afghanistan en faitBegram,
they are in fact
the beginning of
the history of Afghanistan
when it belonged to
the classical world
of Alexander the Great.
So these are the beginnings
of Afghan history,
before the Buddhist period,
before the birth of
this Greco-Buddhist art
but moreover,
if we take Tepe Fullol
as prologue,
Tepe Fullol is a site that
refers to the prehistory,
the second millennium
before Jesus Christ.
What unifies
these different sites
is that Afghanistan emerges
as a bridge between
East and West, between
the Mediterranean and
the Indian subcontinent,
with always,
in all the four faces,
this opening
to Central Asia,
to the North,
to the aesthete.
So there are several ways
to interpret the exhibition
and the different
approaches are
by definition the same.
Gentle viewers,
we will be right back
after these brief messages.
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television.
So we have to get
the message out there.
We have to tell the story
of the beauty
and the wonder
of Afghanistan’s past.
It’s their heritage.
The oldest pieces
of the exhibition
are the golden vessels
from Tepe Fullol.
They date back
to the late Bronze Age
between 2200-1900 BC.
We find two bowls
and a goblet.
The golden bowls show
a depiction of animals,
namely a wild boar and
a bull, and ornaments.
In their style, they refer
to Mesopotamia and also
the Indus culture.
The director
of the National Museum
of Afghanistan in Kabul,
Mr. Omar Khan Massoudi,
shared the following:
I think
this is really important,
all of them, especially from
a historical point of view,
it'll be, if we pay attention
to the artifacts
from Tepe Fullol, which
belongs to Bronze Age.
They date more than
4,000 years ago.
Another part
of the exhibition is
dedicated to Ai Khanum.
The artworks here
are of Greek influence.
Ai Khanum was a town
founded by Seleucus, one
of Alexander the Great’s
former commanders
in 232 BC.
One may refer to it
as the most eastern point
of the Greek world.
Professor
Nazar Mohammad Azizi,
Director General
for Kushan-Research,
spoke about the meaning
of Ai Khanum:
Then we had
many precious things
and buildings of Greek
culture and civilisation.
For example,
we have a famous site,
that is called Ai Khanum.
Ai Khanum is
an Uzbek language of ours
in northern Afghanistan.
It means Lady Moon.
Lady Moon –
that is Ai Khanum.
Ai Khanum is
like an Alexandria.
If you go and look
in historical records,
you will find that this is
an Oxus Alexandria
(city of ancient
Greco-Bactrian kingdom).
Oxus Alexandria.
On this place
there are many buildings,
different artistic creations.
For example,
the Corinthian capitals
and columns, and also
palaces of the Greek,
amphitheatres
for example;
also many walls
that have been called
walls of the citadel.
And moreover, we have
many inscriptions,
also as you can see,
in Greek language,
and Greek inscriptions
had been made then.
An impressive piece of art
is the so-called
Cybele disc
from Ai Khanum,
3rd century BC.
Cybele, the Greek
goddess of nature,
is depicted travelling
through her beloved
mountain domain.
Her chariot is drawn
by two lions.
A winged goddess
of victory accompanies her.
Two priests,
one of them holding up
a large ceremonial parasol
and the other burning
incense on an altar,
mark the edges of the disc.
Three celestial bodies
are to be seen in the sky:
the sun in shape
of the sun god Helios,
a crescent moon,
and a star.
The disc is an example
of an art that fuses Greek
and Oriental motifs.
The motif of Cybele
on a chariot
drawn by lions, is from
the Mediterranean area.
The priests’ robes and
the big wheeled chariot
have their origin
in the Orient.
Like this piece of art,
many pieces have a
profound spiritual meaning
and reflect the beliefs
of the people in their time.
His Excellency,
Omar S. Sultan,
shared the following about
spirituality and religion:
In every country,
every human being has to
believe in something
because otherwise
your life is not complete.
I mean you call him God,
I call him God,
it is the same God.
It is not different.
So, with your religion
or my religion,
religion plays
a very important role.
But we have to [be] careful
how to use the religion
to make a common
and a beautiful way
to the people.
At least
that’s what I believe,
that if you don’t believe
in something in your life,
then your life is empty.
Dr. Fredrik Hiebert,
as curator of the exhibition
in Quebec, Canada,
explains how the artifacts
tell fascinating stories
about life
in ancient Afghanistan,
while offering
truly unique creations
to the world.
I think that the artifacts
that we see
from Afghanistan
show the true nature
of Afghan culture,
going all the way back.
You look at these artifacts
and you wonder
how they could be made.
They’re so beautiful
and some of them
are exceedingly tiny
and some of them
are quite large,
and the craftsmanship
is remarkable.
If you would
think about this country
with the high mountains
and the vast deserts,
you think, “Wow,
how could people
have made these
beautiful objects right there
in Afghanistan?”
I think it suggests
that the Afghan people
are very good artisans.
They were inspired by
the art of all the cultures
around them and yet
they took those inspirations
and they took those ideas
including religious ideas,
including artistic ideas,
and they put them
in their own art.
And they created something
that I consider
to be a unique
Afghan form of art.
Asked about
his expectation in respect
to this exhibition,
Mr. Shirazuddin Saifi,
Director of
the Restoration Department
of the Kabul
National Museum,
shared the following:
My expectation
from the exhibition
is to broadcast
our culture and customs
to the world outside.
So that the world outside
become aware of
our culture and tradition…
Friendly viewers,
this concludes the first part
of our program.
Please join us again
tomorrow, August 25.
Now, please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television
for Words of Wisdom,
after Noteworthy News.
May your life be touched
by beauty and nobility.
For more information
about the “Afghanistan:
Surviving Treasures”
exhibition
in Bonn, Germany
lasting through
October 3, 2010,
please visit
Today’s
Enlightening Entertainment
will be presented
in Dari, English,
French, and German,
with subtitles in Arabic,
Aulacese (Vietnamese),
Chinese, English,
French, German,
Indonesian, Japanese,
Korean, Malay,
Persian, Portuguese,
Russian, Spanish
and Thai.
Welcome, loyal viewers
to the continuation
of our program about
an exhibition that features
the Bactrian Gold
of Afghanistan.
The exhibition,
“Afghanistan:
Hidden Treasures,”
is a selected collection
of the National Museum
of Afghanistan and
is currently on display
in Bonn, Germany.
The findings
of the excavation site,
Tillya Tepe, are some of
the most exciting treasures
of this exhibition.
Tillya Tepe means
“golden mound”
and dates around the time
of Christ’s birth.
In 1978-79
Russian archaeologist
Victor Sarianidi
and his team discovered
the more than 20,000
objects mostly made of
gold and silver which
belonged to nomads.
These finds belong to
mid-first century BC,
the first century B.C.
And these are the finds
which were extracted
from six burial sites
in Sheberghan.
And now a small number
of them are brought
to this exhibition,
every one of which owns
a different ornamentation.
The treasures
of Tillya Tepe reveal
the close connection
that the nomadic people
had with Greece,
Rome, China
and southern Russia.
All of a sudden you look
at this gold and say,
“Oh, my goodness, it’s
a mix of East and West.”
And that’s what you see
in these collections:
true art.
As we go through
the collections, you’ll see
many amazing things.
They were wearing
these solid gold anklets,
and as we studied
the inventory in this,
we learned things
by handling these objects
that we could never
have learned from
looking at photographs
of some of these things.
Each weighed
two and a half pounds
a piece.
What we are looking at here
is a very interesting
economic aspect.
This is actually the
nomadic banking system.
Think about the definition
of a nomad, right?
Nomads have no houses;
thus they have no banks.
They carry all their wealth
with them.
They were, each person,
each individual,
these six nomads,
was wearing
about 20 pounds of gold.
That is truly
an amazing thing.
One of the sophisticated
objects of Tillya Tepe
is the “Ornament
for the neck of a robe.”
Intended to be sewn
to the neck of a gown,
it has small tubes
for thread soldered
to the reverse
of the double crescents.
What pieces
do you like most?
Can you tell our viewers
something about them?
Which pieces?
It is difficult
to make a selection
because there are
many beautiful pieces.
Perhaps
the most spectacular,
the most unexpected,
is the crown
of the famous princess
of Tillya Tepe;
how it is very floral,
very elegant, very pure
and at the same time,
very special indeed.
It is the single crown
of this type that
has been found, though
it evokes another world,
even the Far East,
as a matter of fact.
Dr. Hiebert was also
impressed by the beauty
of the crown
of the nomadic princess.
We have
such a large number
of remarkable objects.
I look at the exhibition
and I try to imagine,
what is my favorite object?
And every day
I have a different object.
But let me tell you
about a few that I think
are truly unique and tell
the story of Afghanistan.
We have a series
of gold objects from
northern Afghanistan
that are 2,000 years old.
And this crown is a
wonderful piece of artwork.
It has points on the crown
that look like trees.
Well, it’s a nomadic crown,
so that when it was found
they realized that it
actually could come apart.
You could take the points
off the top like trees,
and put them in a pouch
and fold up the band and
you could put it in a pouch.
I could just imagine
the nomadic princess,
who would be
wearing the crown
and decided to gallop off
to some other side,
would put her crown
in her pouch,
gallop off and then
put it back on her head.
It would be marvelous
to see her put her crown
back on in the fields
of northern Afghanistan.
We’ll continue
our exploration
of this remarkable exhibit
of Afghan art
when we return.
Please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television.
Afghanistan was a crossroad
for all the civilizations,
from the Achaemenid,
from Greece, from India,
Buddhism, Roman,
and of course Islam.
In every those facts are
one common is the culture.
Every one of us
has the beauty of it.
Later on they made
all these pieces of art
with the influence of course
from other cultures
but also from the local.
So you can see
in Tillya Tepe,
there is an Aphrodite,
but that Aphrodite doesn’t
look like an Aphrodite of
in Greece, the clothes,
the face is local.
Welcome back
to our feature about
the Afghan heritage
that is on display
around the world in
an extraordinary exhibition.
We just heard about
the treasure of Tillya Tepe,
which reveals works of art
of incredible beauty
and craftsmanship.
And he had these
beautiful boot buckles
that he was wearing, one
on each side of his boots.
And I remember
these pictures from
the National Geographic
article,
and I remember saying,
“Ah, these are Chinese.”
Look at them very carefully,
you see, on each piece
you see a chariot,
and there is kind of
a Chinese looking guy
riding in a chariot,
and the chariot is pulled
by two dragons.
The chariot has a parasol,
very typical
of the Han Dynasty,
So we said, “Check off,
this is education of China.”
By the time
we saw this piece
and actually handled it
and turned it over,
we realized, “No, this is
also made in Afghanistan.”
Same Afghan gold,
same Afghan turquoise,
not just one barrel,
but all the barrels,
objects were exquisitely
made for them
in Afghanistan.
Here’s another one
of my favorite pieces.
There is a
“Necklace with a cameo”
and it shows a head
in profile.
The helmet is typical of one
worn by
Graeco-Bactrian kings.
Other beautiful and even
more refined necklaces
are also displayed.
Further, we see a “Small
cylindrical lidded box
with Greek inscription”
and a “Brooch in the form
of a five-petalled blossom.”
Beautiful pendants
and hair ornaments
are also to be seen.
Often times
animals are depicted, like
in the “Pair of bracelets
in the form of antelopes.”
This is not like
King Tut’s gold.
These are objects
that they wore during life
and were interred with
when they were
buried with it.
And what beautiful pieces
they are as well.
These are hair pieces.
And the beauty
is they take influences
from East and West.
This is a famous
hairpiece called,
“The Dragon Master.”
You see it, there’s a man
holding back two dragons.
And, it’s from
ancient Near East.
Professor
Nazar Mohammad Azizi
told us about
one special bowl
that had been found.
And especially
in Tellya Tepe
of course there are
some objects very special,
with the influence
of the Greek…
For example,
we have a golden bowl
from Tillya Tepe
in this exhibition.
On the brim of this bowl
there is written:
CTA MA.
CTA MA is a, like you say,
a kind of weight
in Greece.
For example 1 kilogram,
2 kilogram
or a half kilogram.
CTA MA is not the name
of the artist, but instead
a measure of weight.
And that is very precious.
This golden belt
consists of eight sections
of a flexible band
of braided gold chains.
Between the gold chains
there are nine medallions.
All nine medallions
show the same image:
someone sitting
on the back of a panther
with a bowl in his hands.
But the reliefs vary
in detail from medallion
to medallion.
Each was made separately
and then soldered on.
This belt, unlike others
that have been found,
belonged to royal authority.
Afghanistan is
a very rich culture and
very rich country because
of its natural resources.
It’s a country
that has high mountains
and vast deserts, and
in between the mountains
and the deserts
they have minerals and
they have wonderful places
for farming.
It’s an area
of natural richness
that has attracted people
for literally centuries.
They export all sorts
of items from Afghanistan
in the past, as today.
From very earliest times,
people have been
interested in the minerals
of Afghanistan.
Northern Afghanistan
for example, is one of
the only known locations
of the beautiful
blue stone Lapis Lazuli.
It was exported
far and wide.
It was exported
all the way to Egypt
thousands of years ago,
and it was exported
in very large quantities
so that even the Great Mask
of King Tutankhamun
was covered in the stones
from Afghanistan.
That’s just one example.
Of course, it was rich in
so many other minerals
and metals as well.
It has that native wealth.
It also had enough
agricultural potential
and so many resources
that in the past,
many great cities grew
and the population
of Afghanistan
was quite large
4,000 years ago,
3,000 years ago,
2,000 years ago.
I am very happy
to organize
this kind of exhibition.
Most of people
showed their interest,
from the beginning
of this exhibition
in five countries,
like France, Italy,
Netherlands,
United States, Canada.
Many people will have
visited that exhibition,
even more than
one million people.
This is a key
of cultural activities
that as you know now
are the way
to the globalization.
I think that
the world is too small.
It is really important
to have very close
cooperation together.
Organizing
of this kind of exhibition
is really important,
that people have to know
about the past of our race,
country, and also
they can compare.
We always wish
our activities
to always exist with
other countries as well,
and theirs with us.
We always carry
this hope and desire
that cultures go together
step by step.
Which (archeological) finds
do you love the most?
I…
All of our finds are
infinitely valuable to us,
we don’t differentiate
between them.
Whatever culture in which
work has been done
is very invaluable.
Thank you for your
company today.
Next week,
on Tuesday, August 31,
we will continue the last
of our 3-part program.
Now, please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television
for Words of Wisdom,
after Noteworthy News.
May art bring us
closer together.
Thank you for your
company today.
Next week,
on Tuesday, August 31,
we will continue the last
of our 3-part program.
Now, please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television
for Words of Wisdom,
after Noteworthy News.
May art bring us
closer together.
For more information
about the “Afghanistan:
Surviving Treasures”
exhibition in Bonn,
Germany lasting through
October 3, 2010,
please visit
Standing on the roof
of the world, Lhasa,
the capital of Tibet,
one can seem to touch
the clear sky and
hear above the clouds.
Here is the traditional
residence of
the Dalai Lamas:
the Potala Palace.
Find out about this sacred
Tibetan Buddhist site,
Sunday, August 29
on Supreme Master
Television’s
The World Around Us.
Today’s
Enlightening Entertainment
will be presented
in Dari, English,
French, and German,
with subtitles in Arabic,
Aulacese (Vietnamese),
Chinese, English,
French, German,
Indonesian, Italian,
Japanese, Korean, Malay,
Persian, Portuguese,
Russian, Spanish
and Thai.
Welcome,
beauty loving viewers
to the final part of our
3-part program about
the Bactrian gold
of Afghanistan and other
incredible works of art
that are on display
for the world to admire.
“Afghanistan:
Surviving Treasures,”
includes
legendary treasures from
the National Museum of
Afghanistan in Kabul
and has been exhibited
most recently
in Bonn, Germany.
A testimony of
various cultures that met
in Afghanistan can be
found in the collection
known as
the “Begram Treasure.”
The Begram Treasure
dates to the 1st and
early 2nd century AD
and gives insight into
the early history of
Afghanistan’s northern
region, the Hindu Kush.
An important part of this
treasure is the glassware,
bronze pieces,
and stucco medallions.
That painted goblet that
I showed you, beautiful.
It actually has scenes of
Egyptian life on it,
the Egyptian Nile.
And the chemical analysis
of the glass proves that
that piece of glass,
which was one of many,
was actually made
in Alexandra in Egypt.
Lacquered bowls
from China, glass that
probably came by sea
to India and then
were trans-shipped
up to Begram, and
whereto after that
we certainly don’t know.
Some of the glass vessels
were made of colorless
glass while others were
of transparent blue glass.
This glassware may be
regarded as the oldest
surviving examples of
Greek-Roman glass art.
There are even
fish-shaped flasks.
An interesting object is
the “Jug in the shape
of a kinnari.”
A kinnari
in Indian mythology is
a hybrid being,
part woman, part bird,
and the traditional ideal
of female beauty
and grace.
Glass was something that
was a very interesting
trade commodity
to China.
So, this would have been
a major portal for that.
And the type of goods
that we have in that
merchant’s warehouse,
and you’ll see them
in that exhibition,
very small glasses,
very fine pieces,
these were all sort of
sumptuous pieces.
Because when you’re
trading things so far,
you want to trade
the most valuable things.
One special piece is the
so called “Round basin
decorated with fish.”
There was one piece that
was mysterious to us.
We didn’t know exactly
what it is.
It’s a tray made
out of bronze about 20
centimeters in diameter
decorated with fish,
fish swimming
all the way around, and
the fish have fins that
wiggle if you move it.
You could pour water
on it and the fish’s fins
move back and forth.
It must have simply been
an amusement for people
2,000 years ago,
a sort of a game for them
to enjoy and to look at.
And I think about,
isn’t that interesting
people have been amused
by games
even 2,000 years ago.
Remarkably,
during the restoration of
that bronze piece,
an extraordinary,
hardly visible multicolor
painting was discovered
on the surface.
There has been no other
example of an ancient
color-painted bronze
in the whole world
up till now.
Part of the Begram finds
are also some plaster casts.
They depict mainly
mythological subjects,
but also other
Hellenistic images.
The plaster casts served
as drafts for artists
or as examples
for potential buyers,
perhaps even both.
The “Medallion, depicting
Endymion asleep” shows
Endymion, king of Elis,
visited by Selene
accompanied by Eros.
Another depiction of
a mythological scene
is the medallion,
“Ganymede and
the eagle of Zeus.”
The treasures that are
shown to the world
in this exhibition are
invaluable, not only
for the Afghan people
but for the whole world.
They have been kept
during difficult times in
some safes in the Afghan
Central Bank thanks
to the heroic efforts
of the staff of
the National Museum of
Afghanistan in Kabul.
Dr. Hiebert recalled
the moment
when it was clear that
the treasure was safe.
The expression
on the faces of all those
Afghans changed,
when all of a sudden they
realized, they themselves
had saved their own
national treasures.
It was
a glorious moment.
It was the moment that
all to Afghanistan
had been waiting for,
it’s amazing.
So I want to show you
some of these objects,
obviously you can
see them upstairs, but
there are some things
that you should know
about these.
These are
exceptional objects.
After it was known that
the works of art still
existed and were safe,
the idea emerged to
present this exhibition
to the world.
But first, a lot of work
had to be done.
Mr. Pierre Cambon, chief
curator of Museé Guimet
in Paris, France recalls:
The mounting was done
in Paris
within a very short time,
restoration, catalog,
installation.
At the same time,
the exhibition was
an opportunity to
restore some items of
the Kabul Museum,
to analyze the stones of
Tillya Tepe.
So actually,
the exhibition shows
that paradoxically,
the most fragile objects,
the most valuable,
most delicate pieces can
survive, and moreover,
gradually, step by step,
we can rebuild.
Finally now, I think
the exhibition, the project
which from the beginning
has been supported
at the highest level
in Afghanistan, shows
that things are possible;
that the cultural
dimension is
really important in itself,
for the foreigner and
for the country itself, and
it is possible to rebuild,
to build the future.
The artifacts of
this exhibition represent
a special kind of mélange
of art from East and West
and more,
while also reflecting
the individual style
of Afghan artisans
and artists.
What I want to see and
get help from all these
friendly nations
all around the world,
to help us
to rebuild our culture.
This way we would like to
give a culture awareness
to the people of
Afghanistan, bring kids,
children to the museum,
explain their
cultural heritage.
So it has an effect of
bringing peace and have
the people with you.
So without cooperation
of the people
you can’t do anything.
So this way I’m hoping to
unite people and have
their actual contribution
to culture, and
just explain it to them,
that this beautiful culture
is belongs to you.
It is for the Afghan people.
We’ll continue
our exploration of
this remarkable exhibit
of Afghan art
when we return.
Please stay tuned to
Supreme Master
Television.
Welcome back to
our program about
Afghanistan’s treasures,
a selected collection from
the National Museum of
Afghanistan in Kabul
that has amazed people
around the world.
As it reads at the entrance
of the exhibition in Kabul,
“A nation stays alive,
when its culture
stays alive.”
I think the exhibition is
actually a nice testimony
of that,
art is an important
dimension in life, in fact,
in the past as well as
in the present time.
Forgetting culture
would be a loss of this
dimension that in fact
makes our life
more human.
And art is also heritage,
a tradition.
It is also
a cultural identity.
I think this dimension
is truly important
as a matter of fact.
But the exhibition
by itself shows that
already in our past,
whether it’s in Begram
where the pieces
were imported, or
in Tillya Tepe where
it involves locally made
pieces, in fact typical of
the art styles of the East,
art is a natural part
of everyday life.
Next, Mr. Omar Khan
Massoudi, director of
the National Museum of
Afghanistan in Kabul,
talked about the work
of archaeologists
and historians
and what meaning
their work has for us.
This is the best way,
this is the best
documentation, which
they put it in front of
the historian, because
the historian always
writes it down to find the
truth of the social society.
These artifacts can put
a green light about
the each part of
the economical point,
and also social life, and
also about the religious
point of view, etc.
But let me tell you
one thing, that
without the help of the
Parliament of Afghanistan,
without the heroic team
of the archaeological
committee,
this exhibition here and
in the rest of the world
was not possible.
They have worked
together.
We would like to share
this with the whole world,
that we are giving it out
of a culture of tolerance
to a culture of peace.
Afghanistan with
its cultural artifacts
is a testimony about
transcending borders
and strengthening
a constructive identity.
His Excellency
Omar S. Sultan,
Deputy Minister of
Cultural Affairs of
Afghanistan, shared:
I believe culture and art
is going to unite back
the Afghans and they
will find their identity,
because,
don’t forget this,
Afghanistan is very, very,
very proud of
their cultural heritage.
So I believe
that’s something that
we can do,
unite back through art,
through culture,
unite them.
In organizing this
exhibition, many nations
worked together
hand in hand to
bring this treasure to
the worldwide audience.
They have a shared
dream: humankind
in peace and harmony.
And I always hope,
our culture,
our civilization makes
connections between
our country and
all countries, because
the artifacts
do not belong to
Afghanistan alone,
but instead those artifacts
are for all countries
in the world.
That is very important.
My message to all
humankind, particularly
on the issue of protection
of cultural assets
of nations, is that
they need to have
contiguous relationships.
They should attempt to
protect and save
cultural assets.
The world is tied to
one another
as a civilizational circle.
May we appreciate all
the marvelous treasures
of Afghanistan as we also
become more aware
of our world’s
interconnectedness
and kinship through
this special exhibition.
We thank all people and
organizations involved in
protecting and presenting
these art works to
further cultural dialog
and exchange, including
the National Museum
of Afghanistan in Kabul,
the Canadian Museum
of Civilization, and
The Bundeskunsthalle
(Art and Exhibition Hall
of the Federal Republic
of Germany).
Our special thanks
also go to our
interview guests who
shared their views and
stories: His Excellency
Omar S. Sultan,
Deputy Minister of
Cultural Affairs of
Afghanistan;
Mr. Omar Khan Massoudi,
Director of the National
Museum of Afghanistan
in Kabul; Professor
Nazar Mohammad Azizi,
Director General
for Kushan-Research,
Afghanistan;
Mr. Shirazuddin Saifi,
Director of the
Restoration Department
of the National Museum
of Afghanistan in Kabul;
Mr. Pierre Cambon,
chief curator of Musée
Guimet in Paris, France;
Dr. Robert Fleck,
Director of the Art
and Exhibition Hall
of the Federal Republic
of Germany;
and Dr. Fredrik Hiebert,
archeologist with
the National Geographic
Society, USA.
Through endeavors
such as yours, may all
the world enjoy beauty,
peace, and harmony.
Friendly viewers,
thank you for
your pleasant company
on this program.
Now, please stay tuned
to Supreme Master
Television
for Words of Wisdom,
after Noteworthy News.
Wishing you wonderful
discoveries on your
inner and outer journeys.
For more information
about the “Afghanistan:
Surviving Treasures”
exhibition in Bonn,
Germany lasting through
October 3,
please visit