Chaman-i Hazouri ( prs, چمن حضوری)
, Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands (CEMML), Colorado State University and US Department of Defense, retrieved 26 October 2018. or Hazoori Chaman ( ps, حضوري چمن) is a park in downtown

Kabul Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

. It is the site of the famous Chaman Hazouri hoard (or Kabul hoard) of ancient coins and jewellery dating back to the

Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...

(550–330 BCE), which is of key interest to the historians.

Description

Chaman Hozori park lies at the foot of the Tepe Maranjan hill, close to the Kabul River passing through the Kabul city centre. The

Ghazi Stadium Ghazi Stadium (; ) is a multi-purpose stadium located in eastern Kabul, Afghanistan, which is mainly used for association football matches. It is sometimes called by other names such as the Afghan Football Federation Stadium. It was built during t ...

is immediately to the north of the park. The park is currently used as a meeting place and parade ground, especially during the Republic Day (''Jeshn-i-Jamhuriat'') celebrations around

17 July Events Pre-1600 * 180 – Twelve inhabitants of Scillium (near Kasserine, modern-day Tunisia) in North Africa are executed for being Christians. This is the earliest record of Christianity in that part of the world. * 1048 – Damasu ...

. During the reign of Amir Habibullah (1901–1919), the area was used as a golf course. The park was also referred to as "Jeshyn grounds" due to the celebration of annual independence day celebrations there. For the 1956 Jeshyn fair, which was billed as "international", the Soviet Union and the United States vied with each other for creating their exhibitions.

R. Buckminster Fuller Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...

was commissioned to design a geodesic dome for the US exhibition, which was manufactured in

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

and flown to Kabul so that it could be assembled by local Afghan workers within two days.The geodesic dome at the 1956 Jeshyn Fair
Meridian International Center, Washington D.C., retrieved 28 October 2018.

Chaman Hozori hoard

In 1933, when foundations were being dug for a house close to the park, an ancient pot was discovered containing jewellery and around 1,000 coins. 127 coins and pieces of jewellery were taken to the

Kabul Museum The National Museum of Afghanistan (Dari: موزیم ملی افغانستان, ''Mūzīyam-e mellī-ye Afghānestān''; ps, د افغانستان ملی موزیم, ''Də Afghānistān Millī Mūzīyəm''), also known as the Kabul Museum, is a ...

and others made their way to various museums in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

and elsewhere. Some two decades later,

Daniel Schlumberger Daniel Théodore Schlumberger (19 December 1904 – 21 October 1972) was a French archaeologist and Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at the University of Strasbourg and later Princeton University. Biography After having been invited by ...

of ''Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan'' (DAFA) published photographs and details of the finds stored in the Kabul Museum in a book titled ''Tresors Monetaire en Afghanistan''.Achaemenid Rule (550–330 BC)
Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands (CEMML), Colorado State University and US Department of Defense, retrieved 26 October 2018. The Chaman Hozori coins remained at the Kabul Museum until 1992–1993, at which time the

Mujahideen ''Mujahideen'', or ''Mujahidin'' ( ar, مُجَاهِدِين, mujāhidīn), is the plural form of ''mujahid'' ( ar, مجاهد, mujāhid, strugglers or strivers or justice, right conduct, Godly rule, etc. doers of jihād), an Arabic term th ...

fighting the Afghan civil war plundered the museum. All the coins were lost (along with various other artifacts). Some two years later, 14 coins from the collection surfaced in a private collection in Pakistan.

Osmund Bopearachchi Osmund Bopearachchi (born 1949) is a Sri Lankan historian and numismatist who has specialized notably standardized the coinage of the Indo-Greek and Greco-Bactrian kingdoms. He is currently Emeritus Director of the CNRS at the École Normale Supé ...

and Aman ur Rahman published their details in the book ''Pre-Kushana Coins in Pakistan'' (1995). The Chaman Hozori hoard is of high interest to the historians because it contains a significant coin, an imitation of an

Athenian Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

tetradrachm The tetradrachm ( grc-gre, τετράδραχμον, tetrádrachmon) was a large silver coin that originated in Ancient Greece. It was nominally equivalent to four Greek drachma, drachmae. Over time the tetradrachm effectively became the standard ...

, whoc can be dated, approximately to 380 BCE. From this coin, the numismatists wer able to date the hoard and giving historical basis for all other finds in the hoard. In particular, numismatist

Joe Cribb Joe Cribb is a numismatist, specialising in Asian coinages, and in particular on coins of the Kushan Empire. His catalogues of Chinese silver currency ingots, and of ritual coins of Southeast Asia were the first detailed works on these subjects i ...

has postulated that the local coins found in the hoard are the earliest coins minted in

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;;;;; ...

and he traces the evolution of the

coinage Coinage may refer to: * Coins, standardized as currency * Neologism, coinage of a new word * ''COINage'', numismatics magazine * Tin coinage, a tax on refined tin * Protologism, coinage of a seldom used new term See also * Coining (disambiguatio ...

in the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

from this source.

References

Bibliography

* * {{citation , last=Cribb , first=J. , year=1985 , chapter=Dating India's Earliest Coins , title=South Asian Archaeology, 1983: Proceedings from the Seventh International Conference of the Association of South Asian Archaeologistan in Westeren Europe Held in the Musees Royaux d'art et d'histoire, Brussels , editor1=J. Schotsmans , editor2=M. Taddei , pages=535–554 , location=Naples , publisher=Istituto Universario Orientale , chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/33778310 , ref={{sfnref, Cribb, Dating India's Earliest Coins, 1985 Parks in Kabul Archaeological sites in Afghanistan