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September 1, 2005
The walled city of Peshawar
Text by Sadia Qasim Shah, photos by Abdul Majid Goraya
The capital city of the North West Frontier Province, Peshawar is one of the oldest cities of South Asia but its uniqueness lies in the fact that it is a historical ‘living’ city. The walled city of Peshawar has had successive rulers including the Huns, Turk Shahi, Hindu Shahi, Mughal and the British for more than two millennia. The city is rich with the culture and history of all these different rulers.The walled city of Peshawar has numerous historical monuments and is laid out in an irregular trapezoid form and at the heart of it lies the historic Gore Khatree.
Gore Khatree is an almost quadrangle cluster of buildings, within the walled city and can be approached from two important locations of Peshawar: Chowk Yaadgaar and Hashtnagri Gate.The earliest reference to these monuments is found in the Babarnama which refers to it as a holy place much revered by the Jogis and Hindu devotees. The raised mound of the site is indicative of the existence of successive historical layers, and this has also been established by the excavations carried out by the Archaeology Department of the University of Peshawar.
There are a number of historical structures at the protected site of Gore Khatree. In the centre is a Sikh temple, built during the Sikh period. It has many small rooms and an enclosure wall. The temple, constructed of bricks, employs cut brick decoration for pilasters and capitals and is in dire need of preservation.
Another interesting structure at the site is the Mughal-period caravan serai with several cells and two gateways at the western and eastern side of Gore Khatree. The caravan serai’s construction is attributed to Jahan Ara or Shah Begum (which was her royal title), the eldest and the favourite daughter of Emperor Shah Jehan. It is also said that Noor Jahan, wife of Emperor Jahangir was the architect of the serai, who once lent it the name of Begum ki serai.The architectural style of the two gateways signifies a Shahjehani structure rather than that belonging to Jahangir’s period. Archaeologists believe that it is more likely that the foundation was laid by Noor Jahan, who was known for building serais but was later completed by Jahan Ara Begum.
There are portions of enclosure walls along the remaining cell structures on southern and western sides, three-storey high gateways on the east and west, cells along portions of the southern and western periphery and the foundations of a turret at the northeast corner of the site which belong to the Mughal period.During the Sikh rule, Gore Khatree remained the residence of Ranjit Singh’s governor. Later on, the British established their kutchery in the premises and used the governor’s mansion as their offices.
Several new British structures were added within the compound for various functions of the civil government, most of which were demolished to construct a ‘Mughal-style’ garden. However, the barracks which date back to 1912, and line a portion at the southern-eastern side, still exist. These barracks also served as a fire brigade station and a fire brigade bell tower still exists as testimony.
The recent interventions in the forms of a ‘wedding-hall’ and a mosque, constructed during the 1990s’ look completely out of place among the historical Mughal and Sikh period structures.
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