World Heritage Day 2018 at SPS Museum Srinagar

Hello guys,
I had shared with you in my previous introduction post that I shall be sharing with you the heritage related stuff aswell.
I repeat I'm not any writer so my writing might be haphazard, excuse me for that. 😂

So it was World Heritage Day yesterday. You know it's is observed every year on 18 April.The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) announced in 1982, 18 April as the World Heritage Day. The main motive of course is to raise the awareness about the diversity of monument sites, cultural heritage and hence to make the efforts required to protect and conserve it for posterity.

I'm from Kashmir - a place rich in cultural ethos and natural beauty. I have started working in state museum 2 years back which houses the rare artefacts dating back to centuries. It's an amazing place, I tell you. I shall be sharing detailed blog on museum soon.

The heritage monuments are assets for us. Since it paves an ancient importance, the responsibility lie on all of the citizens to safeguard it for future to
maintain the cultural legacy.

Theme of World Heritage Day 2018
World Heritage Day 2018 was“Heritage for Generations".

So our museum gotta celebrate this day and we had to display something rare for mini exhibition. Here I want to share with you guys that we have recently shifted to new Museum complex which is still under construction and only two floors are ready, in which 5 galleries are functional. Rest galleries will get shifted from old to new complex once the construction work is over. The name of the museum is Sri Pratap Singh Museum named after the Dogra ruler who happened to give his palace for establishing museum. That's now the old complex of museum and after little renovation that ll be established as monument.
Coming to point, we organized an exhibition on Kashmiri Craft - The Shawl wherein on display were 8 master pieces of post medieval period Kashmiri textiles consisting of shawls named Shah Pasand Kani Shawls, Jamavers, embroidered Royals, Pashmina, Amlikiar Shawls.
All the shawls are from reserved collection of the museum consisting of beautiful embroidery. The earliest shawls housed in SPS Museum Srinagar dates from Afghan period, i.e. late 17th century - 20th century modern period.

Pashmina is a shawl made from fine-quality Kashmiri goat's wool.Pashmina came to be known as 'cashmere' in the West because Europeans first encountered this fibre in Kashmir. The production cycle of pashmina is unique in its own way. You should read it over Internet if you guys get sometime. Meanwhile I ll come up with an exclusive post on it soon. Srinagar is summer Capital of the state.

One of the master pieces displayed in the exhibition was the map of srinagar city (the city where I live). The embroidered map of city on Pashmina base . This is extremely rare textile in the history of the state. It is said that Maharaja had ordered for a Srinagar map and the famous shawl artisan namely Ghulam Ahmad Kaloo was put on work. The artisan has taken years(some say 35 years) to complete rare Shawl embroidery based maps. 3 maps were made by the artisan. One is displayed in the State Museum. Second is in Britain and third is in Austria.

The beautiful hand work and the embroidery showing the city's beautiful water bodies, mountains, houses, Mughal gardens and what not. The name of the sites in Persian embroidery in the map. The needle work is superb and indeed the artisan had golden hands.

The picture above shows the famous Dal Lake then wherein people are rowing shikaras. The then tourist destination Lake was not a easy place to visit. One had to take the permission from office of the Maharaja wherein once could visit the lake from 10 am to 4pm. There was no permission for the night stay in Lake. It's later on that Dal Lake became tourist destination for all the people in the world and houseboats started settling in the lake.

This is SHANKATACHARYA HILL and the temple on the top of it in Srinagar. It's still same.

Mughal gardens are also beautifully embroidered in the map. Here is look to famous Shalimar Garden made by Mughal ruler here that Emperor Jahangir built his dream project to please his queen. He enlarged the ancient garden in 1619 into a royal garden and called it 'Farah Baksh' that means 'the delightful'. He built it for his wife Nur Jahan.

It's said that many people came to do the photography of the map textile to make the replica but everyone failed and hence no such replica was ever made.

It's worth pondering who would give years time for handmade needle work. The most beautifully embroidered borders of the shawl floral designs is epitome of craftsmanship.

And the artisan didn't forget to embroider his copyright and tag. He embroidered his name
and his workshop in persian language. See the beautiful name with needlework on top right of the map.

Besides the classical Shah Passand Shwals of the Afgan, Sikh and Dogra period were displayed in the exhibition.

The most widely known woven textiles of Kashmir are the famed shawls. The Kanikar and embroidered for instance, has intricately woven designs that are formalized imitations of nature. Yet another type of Kashmir shawl is the Jamiavar, which is a brocaded woolen fabric sometimes in pure wool and sometimes with a little cotton added.
The another type of Kashmir shawl is the double-sided Dourukha , a woven shawl that is done both sided as to produce the same effect on both sides. It is of course unique piece of craftsmanship, in which apart from a proper fabric base, multi-coloured schematic pattern is woven all over the surface, and after the shawl is completed, the rafugar (expert embroiderer) works the outlines of the motifs in darker shades to bring into relief the beauty of design.

You know the most expensive Shawl is called Shahtoosh, are made from under-fleece of the Tibetan antelope or Chiru. These shawls are so fine that even a very tightly woven shawl can be easily pulled through a small finger ring. Such shawls are locally known as ring shawl. Usually brides take them as veil on their wedding day.

So we had wrap up the exhibition by 4 pm and thousands of visitors included locals, tourists, students who not only visited the special Exhibition but also the museum galleries coz entry was made free for the entire day.

Hope you enjoyed this piece of my blog. I shall be sharing more in future. It was all in hurry. Sorry for the haphazard sequence. I'm not an expertise blogger of course :D

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