“Catalogue of the National Museum of Afghanistan:" Cultural Preservation through Art History

In 2007, six years after the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamyan, UNESCO published a record of the holdings of the National Museum of Afghanistan.

The book's pages display photographs and drawings of 1,600 artifacts acquired by the museum between 1931 and 1985. The range of pieces is vast. There is gold work from prehistoric Bactrian times, ceramics from the Ghazni period, and woodwork from the modern period.

The catalogue was compiled by French art historian Francine Tissot with the goal of studying and protecting the cultural heritage of Afghanistan. Tissot worked extensively in Afghanistan in the 1970s. For 30 years, she was a curator of Gandharan and Afghan at the Guimet Museum in Paris.

Photographs used in the book were from various private collections, including that of Tissot herself. The artifacts were often found in unconventional ways, as Tissot relays in helpful annotations throughout the book. Some were seized by Afghan customs and many were stumbled on by accident by Afghan rulers and visiting archaeologists. The scattered nature of the collection mirrors Afghanistan’s history of conflict, plunder, and political instability. The Hellenistic, Buddhist, and Chinese influences reflect the region’s strong history of trade and travel.

The book is an important work of preservation, especially given that many, if not most, of the pieces documented in it are now missing.

Rating: ★★★

CATALOGUE OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFGHANISTAN By Francine Tissot | 539 pp. | UNESCO Publishing