Badakhshan residents urged to submit artifacts to museum

FAIZABAD (Pajhwok): Officials in northeastern Badakhshan province have asked the people to hand over artifacts in their houses to the local museum for better preservation and museum’s enrichment.

Information and Culture director Engineer Zabihullah Amiri told Pajhwok Afghan News the museum had a limited number of ancient artifacts and its doors remained closed for foreign tourists for 17 years since its establishment.

However, recently the artifacts of the museum were taken to another location and placed in special showcases and their number was also increased, attracting more than 100 domestic visitors during the past few months, Amiri said.

He said 65 ancient and cultural artifacts existed in the museum including stone, clay, metal and leather artifacts.

All the items in the museum are professionally secured in specialized cabinets and showcases, he said.

Some of the relicts have been donated by people and others seized by security officials from smugglers and handed over to the Department of Information and Culture.

Amiri urged residents who kept such cultural and historic artifacts in their house to donate them to the local museum to further enrich the museum and announced that the directorate was ready to register all such artifacts in the names of their owners or better preservation.

One visitor of the museum Haji Abdul Samad said such historical and cultural relics described the traditions and customs of Islamic and modern eras and the existence of such items attracted foreign tourists.

He asked officials to add more such items to the museum.

There is another museum in the sixth district of Faizabad city called “Dasht-i-Ferough Minar and Museum” where items belonging to the martyrs who were killed during the communist regime in the country are kept. The items reflect the crimes of the communist regime.

The items include hand-cuffs, barbed wires, leg-cuffs and some others left behind by the martyrs.

aw/ma