KARACHI: The coastline of Karachi doesn’t just have a tangible culture as it also has a significant intangible culture, said distinguished architect and town planner Arif Hasan on Saturday.

He was addressing as chief guest at the 8th Annual International Conference on ‘Endangered heritage of south Sindh with special reference to Karachi’ organised by Dr N. A. Baloch Institute of Heritage Research at the Arts Council here.

Mr Hasan said there are many stories associated with Karachi. “I have seen a number of sites that have vanished. There was a site where today exists a part of Gulistan-i-Jauhar. It was an important site. I know a bit in detail about it. Then there was one at Bath Island. That too has disappeared and these days there’s an officers’ housing on that location. Apart from that, there are four to five sites in the range (zad pe) of the under construction Malir Highway.”

The architect said old Karachi neighbourhoods should be looked at as well. “The wall around the old city was demolished by the British in 1848. One part of Rampart Road is on a raised ground. I think since it is high, there must be traces of that wall underneath it.”

American archaeologist says in Mehrgarh people were buried with jewellery, a lot of which came from the coast near Karachi

“Similarly, there are other places to do with intangible culture. One of them is Mahadev Temple. The story about it is that when Shivji gave a form to the world, he got tired and rested in a cave. After resting he promised to look after the area. In 1983, I interview a number of Sindhi scholars and members of the Hindu community, I intend to publish them. The Hindu community claims that the temple is mentioned in the Mahabharata. I read the Mahabharata because of this mandir, but I could not find any reference to it in book. Except at one place it’s given that there’s a cave near the sea where Shiv stayed,” he said.

“Mewa Shah is another subject and how he arrived in Karachi. [It’s said] he faced a few property-related problems in the place, which I’m forgetting, from where he came. The issues angered him and he landed in Karachi.”

Mr Hasan in the last part of his extempore speech touched upon a Jewish graveyard. “Mostly, the names and dates on gravestones are in Hebrew. As far as I recall, the first grave dates back to 1841. It’s a beautiful cemetery. When I published its pictures and details on my website, I received many letters from Jews who’re settled in the UK and whose elders were from Karachi. I got to talk to some seniors, too, and they told me many things about Karachi, expressing their affection for the city. Most of them left Karachi in 1967.”

Earlier, American archaeologist Jonathan Mark Kenoyer gave an enlightening presentation on ‘Coastal Communities of the Indus: Regional Contributions to the Indus Tradition’.

He said in 7000BC, one of the earliest periods when people were settling down, materials from the coast of Makran — even from Oman — from Karachi near Hawkesbay, from Somiani, from the Indus delta, from Gujarat… things were traded to people from inland areas of the region. “Archaeologists first thought that they went to Mehrgarh, but now [after excavations] we can see that they were also connected to Harappa and Uzbekistan. Because of these movements from the coast to highlands of Central Asia, we know that people were going back and forth. Relationships were made. There were marriage relations, families were interconnecting, it made a huge network. Today we have countries and boundaries, in the past the areas were not divided.”

The scholar said, “In Mehrgarh people were buried in the ground with jewellery. A lot of that jewellery came from the coast near Karachi. Some of it may have actually come from Oman. In one of the important discoveries in Mehrgarh, a kangan (bangle) made from a big shell was found. This shell was only found in the Hawkesbay area. We call it a shankh. It’s a wide bangle, a very big heavy bracelet. Women who wear heavy bracelets are women who work hard.”

He claimed similar bracelets were discovered from bigger sites. “When I was doing my dissertation in the 1980s, I found a similar bangle in Harappa. I did not know that that bangle would be found later in Shahi Tump [Makran]. The bangle fragment from Harappa dates back to 4000BC. It means that a woman wearing one of those bangles probably was married into a family in Harappa, Punjab.”

Mr Kenoyer said the same kind of bangle was found in Central Asia. Archaeologists had no idea that it was made from a shankh in the Karachi area. After mentioning a woman’s ornaments found during excavation in Tajikistan, he said, “We have now technology for DNA analysis. The woman’s DNA was: 80 per cent local and 20pc from the Indus region.”

Abdul Ghaffar Soomro was the first main speaker at the conference. He informed the audience on the genesis of the Dr N A Baloch Institute and the great scholarly feats achieved by the late Dr Baloch.

The Dr N A Baloch Award 2023 was also announced on the occasion. It was given posthumously to Dr Michael Jansen.

Dr Asma Ibrahim briefly talked about Dr Jansen.

The opening of the conference was followed by a technical session.

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2023