Sunday, 23 December 2012

Shahr-e-Gholgola

The cave town of Shahr-e-Gholgola is located in central part of Afghanistan. These are the ruins of a once prosperous city of 05^th to 07^th A.D., which was demolished by Genghis Khan during his invasion in Bamiyan Valley in 1221 A.D. The name is derived from Persian and means the “city of noise”. Others refer to it as “Silent city” or “Screaming city”. The Mongols themselves have called this city “Mao Balegh”, meaning the “Cursed city”. Infact when Genghis Khan brought the defenders of this town to their knees where upon he entered the citadel to fulfill a vow to kill everybody including man, woman, child, bird and animal in the valley. The scream that accompanied the final massacre gave the citadel the name by which it is known today.

Sultan Masood Palace

This palace was completed in 112 A.D. and it used to be the court of Masud III who was born in Ghazni in 1061. He ruled from 1099 to 1114 A.D. This palace is a vast complex including a throne room, government offices, soldiers’ quarters, a mosque with its minarets and pockets of gardens in addition to the royal apartment.

The Mausoleum of Ahmed Shah Durrani

Ahmad Shah Durrani (c. 1722–1773), also known as Ahmad Shāh Abdālī and born as Ahmad Khān, was the founder of the Durrani Empire (Afghan Empire) in 1747 and is regarded by many to be the founder of the modern state of Afghanistan.

Ahmad Khan enlisted as a young soldier in the military of the Afsharid kingdom and quickly rose to become a commander of four thousand Abdali Pashtun soldiers. After the death of Nader Shah Afshar of Persia in June 1747, Abdali became the Emir of Khorasan. Rallying his Pashtun tribes and allies, he pushed east towards the Mughal and the Maratha Empire of India as well as west towards the disintegrating Afsharid Empire of Persia and north toward the Khanate of Bukhara. Within a few years he had conquered all of today's Afghanistan and Pakistan, including much of northeastern Iran and the Punjab region in the Indian subcontinent. He decisively defeated the Marathas at the 1761 Battle of Panipat which was fought north of Delhi in India.

After his natural death in 1772–73, his son Timur Shah took control of the empire. Ahmad Shah's mausoleum is located at Kandahar, Afghanistan, adjacent to the famous Mosque of the Cloak of the Prophet Mohammed in the center of the city. The Afghans often refer to him as Ahmad Shah Bābā

Saturday, 22 December 2012

Bote-Bambiyan

The Buddhas of Bamiyan were two 6th century monumental statues of standing buddha carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley in the Hazarajat region of central Afghanistan, situated 230 km (140 mi) northwest of Kabul at an altitude of 2,500 meters (8,202 ft). Built in 507 CE, the larger in 554 CE, the statues represented the classic blended style of Gandhara art.

The main bodies were hewn directly from the sandstone cliffs, but details were modeled in mud mixed with straw, coated with stucco. This coating, practically all of which wore away long ago, was painted to enhance the expressions of the faces, hands and folds of the robes; the larger one was painted carmine red and the smaller one was painted multiple colors.

The lower parts of the statues' arms were constructed from the same mud-straw mix while supported on wooden armatures. It is believed that the upper parts of their faces were made from great wooden masks or casts. Rows of holes that can be seen in photographs were spaces that held wooden pegs that stabilized the outer stucco.

They were dynamited and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban, on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, after the Taliban government declared that they were idols.[5] International opinion strongly condemned the destruction of the Buddhas, which was viewed as an example of the intolerance of the Taliban. Japan and Switzerland, among others, have pledged support for the rebuilding of the statues.

Photojournalist David Adams filmed the Buddhas prior to their destruction for an episode of Journeys to the Ends of the Earth, a travel series for the Discovery Channel

Friday, 21 December 2012

Afghanistan tourist place Gardens of Babur

Gardens of Babur

The Gardens of Babur, locally called Bagh-e Babur, is a historic park in Kabul, Afghanistan, and also the last resting-place of the first Mughal emperor Babur. The gardens are thought to have been developed around 1528 AD (935 AH) when Babur gave orders for the construction of an ‘avenue garden’ in Kabul, described in some detail in his memoirs, the Baburnama.

It was the tradition of Moghul princes to develop sites for recreation and pleasure during their lifetime, and choose one of these as a last resting-place. The site continued to be of significance to Babur’s successors, and Jehangir made a pilgrimage to the site in 1607 AD (1016 AH) when he ordered that all gardens in Kabul be surrounded by walls, that a prayer platform be laid in front of Babur’s grave, and an inscribed headstone placed at its head. During the visit of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in 1638 (1047 AH) a marble screen was erected around the group of tombs, and a mosque built on the terrace below. There are accounts from the time of the visit to the site of Shah Jahan in 1638 (1047AH) of a stone water-channel that ran between an avenue of trees from the terrace below the mosque, with pools at certain intervals.

Masjet-e-Jam

The mosque was constructed by the Timurids. As the mosque came under different rulers, it was extended, expanded and renovated. Some of the rulers that had a hand in its renovation include the Mughals and the Safavids.

This mosque was not always the biggest in the area. In fact, the Timurids constructed a much bigger one. This was established at the north of the city. However, these were destroyed by the British Indian Army in 1885. The British had the structures destroyed so the Russians would not be able to use them as a base during their invasion of India.

The mosque that stands today was built upon an even older mosque dating from the 10th century. The renovation of the place began in 1943. It was in a state of disrepair. The reconstruction would subsequently make it one of the main tourist attractions in the country.It is visited by thousands of people yearly.

www.afghanistantourism.net/tag/masjet-e-jam/

Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a United States National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site that straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are a division of the larger Appalachian Mountain chain. The border between Tennessee and North Carolina runs northeast to southwest through the centerline of the park. It is the most visited national park in the United States. On its route from Maine to Georgia, the Appalachian Trail also passes through the center of the park. The park was chartered by the United States Congress in 1934 and officially dedicated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940. It encompasses 522,419 acres (816.28 sq mi; 2,114.15 km2), making it one of the largest protected areas in the eastern United States. The main park entrances are located along U.S. Highway 441 (Newfound Gap Road) at the towns of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and Cherokee, North Carolina. It was the first national park whose land and other costs were paid for in part with federal funds; previous parks were funded wholly with state money or private funds