Swat Museum is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

located in

Mingora Mingora ( ps, مینګورہ, ur, ) is a city in the Swat District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Located on the Swat River, it is the 3rd largest city in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the 26th largest in Pakistan. Mingora is the largest city and t ...

, on the

and

Saidu Saidu is a town in Lhuntse District in northeastern Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, be ...

road in

Swat District Swat District (, ps, سوات ولسوالۍ, ) is a district in the Malakand Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. With a population of 2,309,570 per the 2017 national census, Swat is the 15th-largest district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa prov ...

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (; ps, خېبر پښتونخوا; Urdu, Hindko: خیبر پختونخوا) commonly abbreviated as KP or KPK, is one of the Administrative units of Pakistan, four provinces of Pakistan. Located in the Geography of Pakistan, ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

History

The museum was conceived in 1959 under the aegis of the Italian Archaeological Mission to Swat and the

Wali of Swat A wali (''wali'' ar, وَلِيّ, '; plural , '), the Arabic word which has been variously translated "master", "authority", "custodian", "protector", is most commonly used by Muslims to indicate an Islamic saint, otherwise referred to by the ...

to contain his personal collection of artifacts. It was later expanded with the assistance of the Japanese government, but was badly damaged in the

Kashmir earthquake The 2005 Kashmir earthquake occurred at on 8 October in Pakistani-administered Azad Kashmir. It was centred near the city of Muzaffarabad, and also affected nearby Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and some areas of Indian-administered Jammu an ...

of 2005. With the war between the Pakistan government and Taliban in 2007, the museum was closed and its contents were moved to

Taxila Taxila or Takshashila (; sa, तक्षशिला; pi, ; , ; , ) is a city in Punjab, Pakistan. Located in the Taxila Tehsil of Rawalpindi District, it lies approximately northwest of the Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area and ...

, this proved lucky as a bomb exploded nearby in February 2008 killing many and damaging the museum. The 2,700 objects were returned to the museum in July 2011, and a new seismic-resistant museum was opened on December 11, 2014.

Collection

The museum contains

Gandhara Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of south-east Afghanistan. The region centered around the Peshawar Vall ...

n statuettes and friezes depicting the lives of the Buddha along with seals, small

reliquaries A reliquary (also referred to as a ''shrine'', by the French term ''châsse'', and historically including '' phylacteries'') is a container for relics. A portable reliquary may be called a ''fereter'', and a chapel in which it is housed a ''fer ...

and other treasures, mostly from Butkara No 1 and Udegram. Additionally, there are pre-Buddhist artefacts, and an ethnographic gallery with traditional carved Swati furniture, jewellery and embroideries. A recent discovery, includes a stone ‘board’ game found at the Buddhist Complex of Amluk-Dara, of a sort still played in the valley today.Khaliq, Fazal (April 27, 2017)
Board game in Swat museum becomes focus of attention
Dawn.

References

External links

Swat Museum page on Directorate of Archaeology & Museums Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan
{{Gandhara Museums in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Art museums and galleries in Pakistan History museums in Pakistan Tourist attractions in Swat Swat District