SILK ROAD ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY 9 Jonathan Lee and Nicholas Sims-Williams The antiquities and inscription of Tang-i Safedak 2003 Journal of the Institute of Silk Road Studies The Hirayama Ikuo Silk Road Museum Foundation The antiquities and inscription of Tang-i Sa(edak Jonathan Lee and Nicholas Sims-Williams Part I: The site of Tang-i Safeclak and the disccrvery of the inscription Jonathan Lt:e In October l 996 the Society for the Preservation of Afghanistan's Cultural Heritagt: 1 SPACH, received information from Peter Schwittek, a German working for the World Food Programme. that a farmer in the Yakaolang district of Bamiyan province, Afghanistan {Fig. 1-2) had come across a subterranean chamber on his land. Having broken through the roof of tilt: cha111hn. the farmer had discovered a series of coins, an ancient book, an inscription and other itt:lll, Soon afterwards, Brigitte Neubacher, then secretary of SPACH, passed through tht: area and took several photographs of the exterior wall of the chamber showing a Bactrian inscription in cursive script still in situ in the wall. One of these photographs was published in the SPACH Newsletter, Issue 3, July 1997, p. 7 (cf. Fig. 3), accompanied by a brief description uf the ~itt:. which was referred to as "Pan-e-Kera". In April I 998, I was engaged by a Japanese television crew working for NHK who wished to visit Bamiyan to film the Buddhas for a documentary on the spread of Buddhism. By thi, time. tht: Hazarajat was under siege by the Taliban and access to the region was severely n.:\lncteJ .-\ le,\ weeks before, Taliban jets had bombed the airfield at Bamiyan whilst an aeroplant: hehll1grng tu the International Committee of the Red Cross was on the runway. This action haltnl direct flight, to Bamiyan by all but local military planes. Instead we were obliged to fly into Y:1bola11g. ,0111e I 00 km west of Bamiyan. Having been informed of the discovery of an inscription by Dr Nancy Duprt:t:. "e planned ti, visit the site if it was not too far away from Yakaolang,;proper. The discovery Wa\ \\di knmrn in the Yakaolang area and since the site in question at Tang-i Safedak was only some 25 km to the west, we decided to try and visit the site. Due to pressure of time, we only spent a coupk of hour, in the village, but we were able to visit the site of the discovery, which by this time had been filled in again in order to preserve it from further looting. as well as to take film and still image, uf the inscription, which had been removed to the house of Haji Ahmadi, the local representati,e of Hizb­ i Wahdat. A number of monumental fragments had also been removed from the -;itc h~ the villagers (Fig. 4). Unfortunately, in the process of removal the top two lines of the 1n,,:ript1on had 160 S.R.A.A .. IX (200.3J been badly damaged and many letters were missing or illegible. , Two day~ later, when I reached Bamiyan. Ustad Khalili. the leadt.:r lil H11.h-1\\ahdat ,rnd commander of Bamiyan province, allowed me to photograph the coin\ ( Fig. 5-7 1 and gold nng (Fig. 8) from the Tang-i Safedak site which he had placed in the charge of one of hi\ a\soc1ate\. I also saw and photographed a number of other antiquities said to have been 1m111d111 tht.: \'iL·init) ot the Bamiyan valley. These included a Hebrew manuscript. a miniature ~ihn chariot \\1th min and horses, a g I ass phi a I which must origin a 11y have contained pert u 111t.: an J ,1 L( ,\ kc t I u 11 ( ,t miscellaneous Islamic and Indian coins. On·enquiry. I was informed that the lmul--from Tang-1 Safedak had turned to dust when exposed to the air. The NHK video footage of the Tang-i Sakdak inscription appear\ lll'.\L'It,i h,1,,· hL·L·11,h,,,\11 \(> any scholar of Bactrian and the few images I had taken under ,·n: d,tr,Lult \1gl1t11,_c:<.:<>11d1t1u11, proved to be of inadequate quality. As a consequence, only a few word~ ut tlw 111~L-r1pt1t,11\\ t.:rt.: legible from the photographs. though what cou Id be read indicated that the 111~cript 1u11",1~ \\Ti tten around the time of the Arab-Muslim conquest. All hope of a quick return to the area was dashed in September \ lJlJ11. "lwn tht.: Ltlih,111t\iok Bamiyan. Yakaolang and much of the rest of the Hazarajat. Over the next thrt.:t.:yt.:ar~ th.: ,ll<.:,1\\,t.~ a battlefield as the Hazaras and the Taliban fought for control of the area. Tholl\,llld~ ot f Lu,ua~ fled to the mountains to escape being massacred by the Taliban and only began to return ,titer the overthrow of the Taliban and the return of Ustad Khalili of Hizb-i Wahdat 1r1 1':mrn1h.:r ::1.()(JI. Following the change of government, in the summer of 2002 I approached the Suut.:l) !or South Asian Studies with a proposal for a mission to ascertain the fate of the Tang-i Safedal-- inscnption and to carry out a survey of Buddhist and Ghurid sites in the upper Balkh Ah and Band-1 :'\1111r watersheds. Having received financial support from the Society. at rhe end t>t :'\ugLht ,m "1k ,mJ l flew to Afghanistan where our mission recei,·ed the full cooper\1tiu11 .uid c·11L·uu1:1g..:111.:11tuf th.: Minister for Information and Culture. Dr Makdoom Raheen, the Dirt.:L·tu1,,t thl.'.l\.,1hul \lu\eum. Mr Masoudi, and the Director of the Institute of Archaeology. Mr Firo;i The \l 1111~terpru, ideJ letters of introduction to the governor ( 11·a/i)of Bamiyan and the di\triL"l g(), .:mm llf Y,1bub11g We flew into Yakaolang on 14 September 2002 and presentt.:d Ur Ralwt.:11·, kttc:r t,, th.: i governor of Yakaolang district. He specifically requested that \\.e did lll>l , i\lt L111g-1S,tklldk immediately as he wished to consult wiJh the 1rn/i of Bamiyan about my rni\\iu11 and tu rnakt.: enquiries related to the inscription. In fact. as events subsequently unfolded. this \\,1, an attempt tu buy time. In the interval we surveyed a number of other Buddhist and Ghurid ~11t.:~111 tlw .lJL\luf tlw upper Balkh Ab and Band-i Amir watershed and made informal enqu1rin about tilt.: late ul tht.: inscription. It appeared that the population of Tang-i Safedak had fled their home\ folllming the Taliban occupation, and it was rumoured that the inscription had eithn ht.:rn \()(1\nl ()r dt.:~troyed. However, it emerged that the guardian of the inscription. Haji Ahmadi. \\a\ ,till ,il1,t.:,md lirn1g 111 the area. Eventually we met with Haji Ahmadi. who confirmed th,11 he hc1J 1--t.:J•tthe· 11N.T1pt1<>11 Lee I Sims-Williams: Tang-i Safedak I (i I safe. as I had requested on my first visit. He also informed me that that book. which was said tu J have fallen apart in 1995, was in fact recovered from the site intact and was also in the possession of Ustad Khalili or one of his associates. It also emerged that Haji Ahmadi had been offered considerable amounts of money, both by the Taliban and by itinerant antiquities dealers. to ~ell the inscription, but he had refused to do so on the grounds that he had earlier promised to protect it until such time as I was able to return and make arrangements for the inscription to be handed over to the National Museum. Subsequently we found that the governor of Bamiyai:i and the district governor of Yakaolang had forced Haji Ahmadi to surrender the inscription under duress. Having been privately informed of these events, I spent three days trying to persuade the governor to allow me access to the inscription. He, however, refused to admit that he, or any other official. had taken pussess1on of tht: inscription, even though I had seen the official receipt given to Haji Ahmadi with his signature u11 it. Having failed to make any headway, I returned to Kabul and reported the matter to the Minister of Information and Culture. who took the issue to the Afghan cabinet. At the same time a number of influential Afghans and United Nations and diplomatic staff also made private representatiom to Hizb-i Wahdat officials in Kabul, Bamiyan and Yakaolang. A series of inten·iews were alsu arranged with the national press during which Mir Ahmad Joyenda, former Director or the Institute of Archaeology and Haji Ahmadi, who had come to Kabul, made a public appeal for the return of the inscription. Finally, as a result of this pressure, the governor of Bamiyan was ordered by his superiors in Hizb-i Wahdat to surrender the inscription and a formal handing-over ceremony was held in the Ministry of Information and Culture. The inscription was then placed in the safe keeping of the Kabul Museum where I was at last able to make a comprehensive photographic record of it. * * * * * The building where the inscription was originally found. which the inscriptio11 identities as a Buddhist stupa, is located approximately one km south of the village of Tang-i Safedak. Tang-i Safedak itself is a small settlement at the north-eastern end of a dry river. nestling under the 1cm foothills to the south-west of the Band-i Amir river valley.' The stupa is located on a terraced platform (Fig.