Pakistan's Cultural Heritage in Peril - Part 3

Here is part 3 of the article by Joachim Hoelzgen

A Fight against Time and the Water Level

In a recent presentation at the Aga Khan's Serena Hotel in Islamabad, Hauptmann outlined to the city's elites the harm the dam project would cause to the cultural legacy of the upper Indus River area. Senior officials from Pakistan's Culture Ministry attended and were surprised to hear what Hauptmann had to say about the remote river canyons. "They were completely taken aback to find that they hadn't been made aware of the cliff drawings before," Hauptmann recalls. It wasn't the kind of event that happens often in the Pakistani capital. With such heavy German involvement in the project, the country's ambassador also attended the event, serving as its chairman.

Pakistan's Cultural Heritage in Peril - Part 2

I posted the link to part 1 of this story yesterday.

A Fight against Time and the Water Level

It now appears inevitable that Pakistan will construct the Basha Diamer Dam, imperilling a cultural legacy that goes back to the end of the Ice Age. With time running out, German archeologist Harald Hauptmann is racing to document the area's thousands of cliff carvings before they are lost.

Pakistan's Cultural Heritage in Peril

Dam Threatens Ancient Buddhist Stone Carvings

Some 35,000 petroglyphs located in Pakistan's Indus River area will soon be flooded by a giant dam. An archeologist from Heidelberg is trying to save as much as he can before encroaching modernity destroys the remote area's cultural history.

I do hope this archaeologist is able to save as much of this history as is possible. It is such a shame when history is destroyed like this. It's terrible enough that such historical objects were destroyed hundreds and thousands of years ago before their importance was realized. Now that we know the importance, we need to be doing everything possible to save sites such as this.