In a recent presentation at the Aga Khan's Serena Hotel in Islamabad, Hauptmann outlined to the city's elites the harm the dam project would cause to the cultural legacy of the upper Indus River area. Senior officials from Pakistan's Culture Ministry attended and were surprised to hear what Hauptmann had to say about the remote river canyons. "They were completely taken aback to find that they hadn't been made aware of the cliff drawings before," Hauptmann recalls. It wasn't the kind of event that happens often in the Pakistani capital. With such heavy German involvement in the project, the country's ambassador also attended the event, serving as its chairman.
But within a few days everything was back to the status quo. "Hauptmann is fighting against Pakistan's hunger for energy, and it's a losing battle," the newspaper Dawn wrote. Indeed, the outlook for a brighter future and Musharraf's projects are what count here and not the glorious past of ancient cultures.
In the past, though, there have been some successes in the fight to preserve Pakistan's ancient relics. Activists managed to prevent a bulky wireless communications tower from being built amidst the ruins of Mohenjodaro, a 5,000-year-old city on the lower course of the Indus. But this success would not have happened without the protests of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Old Mohenjodaro had a sewage system and running water in its homes in the days when Europeans were still running around in bearskins.
However, there is little global public awareness about the cliff drawings and inscriptions along the Indus River. So far only archaeologists have complained about the loss of the site, which at this point appears to be inevitable. According to Luca Maria Olivieri of the renowned Italian Institute for Africa and the Orient in Rome, the site is "unique."
"The loss of a complete historical reconstruction"
Olivieri is conducting excavations west of the Indus in the Malakand district and knows that Hauptmann is in a race against time. "The cliff carvings give us insights into a second human nature," says Olivieri. "Their loss will also be the loss of a complete historical reconstruction."
His colleague, Hauptmann, is an intrepid man -- a necessary trait in a region where blood money and honor killings are still customary and the old enmity between Sunnis and Shiites is still very much alive. Busses filled with Shiites have come under fire while traveling along the Karakorum Highway near Chilas. The busses now travel the road to the south only in convoys.
And once again, a conflict has erupted in the world of the cliff carvings. One must not forget, after all, that it was war that brought an end to the tradition of cliff carvings in the first place. In the 9th century, backward tribes etched images on cliffs of stick figures carrying battleaxes. The warriors depicted in these images were the same ones who attacked the Buddhists in full-blown battles.
In the end, with the advent of Islam, the cliff drawings were no longer tolerated. Images of the Prophet Mohammed, and of people in general, were frowned upon. Koran schools were established and the study of the holy book replaced the writings on the cliffs. There is not a single inscription in Arabic on the cliff faces. There is, however, one in Hebrew left behind by "a son of Moses." Hauptmann believes the author was a Jewish trader.
Using laser scanners to save the cliff paintings
Hauptmann plans to preserve this open-air treasure trove along the Indus for the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences in digital form. He and his wife Salwa, an Egyptian, and his assistant Martin Bemmann have systematically photographed and surveyed 33,000 cliff images, one stone at a time.
On high cliffs, where the perspective on photographs would have been distorted, they stretched clear film across the rock surface. Then they traced the lines and grooves of the paintings with felt-tip pins to create replicas on the film.
Using GPS, Bemmann determined the locations of the cliff paintings and inscriptions, transferred the data to maps and then entered it into Google Earth. This enables him to sit at a computer at his office in Heidelberg and zoom in to the sites from any direction, turning and tilting as if he were in a fantasy film.
But the project goes even further. If the researchers get the financing they need, they plan to bring in a laser scanner to three-dimensionally scan the images directly on site. The data will be entered into a computer, which will allow a computer-controlled milling cutter to carve life-sized models of the priceless images.
The Heidelberg archaeologists have no illusions when it comes to the idea of removing the cliffs from the site. The granite is extremely heavy, and even a medium-sized section would be too heavy to transport across the bridges on the Karakorum Highway. Cutting the images out of the cliff is also impossible. "That would require huge diamond cutters, which would also have to be cooled with water," explains assistant Bemmann, who once considered removal of the images a possibility. "Besides, everything would probably crumble during cutting."
Paging Bianca Jagger
Hauptmann's face reveals the wrinkles of harsh and disappointing experiences, another outcome of decades of archaeology work. He has experienced horrors, including a car accident in Ladakh, where an Indian SUV in which Hauptmann and his wife were traveling had a frontal collision with a military truck on a dusty road. The Hauptmanns were severely injured in the accident.
In some sense Hauptmann has come to terms with the Basha Diamer dam, which is having such an immense impact on his life as a researcher. His own experiences have taught him how important water and electricity are to his host country. In a recent e-mail exchange with a researcher at the American magazine Archeology, he said he had no personal objections to the huge concrete dam.
In many countries dams are jeopardizing important relics of human history. Bianca Jagger even protested against the planned construction of a dam on the Turkish portion of the Tigris River, which will flood Hasankeyf, a city that dates back to the Middle Ages. If Jagger ever makes it to his base camp in Chilas, Hauptmann says, he will pour her a cup of jasmine tea to express his gratitude.
Hauptmann has been afflicted by an unusual fate. After six years of painstaking work, he excavated an ancient village in Anatolia, Nevali Çori. Bordering a canyon on the Euphrates River, the site is home to the origins of human civilization. There, Hauptmann discovered the world's oldest temple and the oldest image of a god ever found: the bust of a snake god with protruding ears. Unfortunately, Nevali Çori is now gone, flooded by a lake created by the Atatürk Dam, which has that stretch of the Euphrates Valley transformed into Turkey's second-largest lake.
Hauptmann soon plans to move on to the next waiting room of history to bring hidden treasures to light once again. This time he will be excavating a Tibetan monastery in the remote river sand desert of Baltistan. In May the region is filled with the images of snow-white apricot trees in bloom, which look like delicate clouds, a hidden paradise through which the Indus flows majestically.
The excavation of the monastery will be his last great prize -- but, once again, a shadow lies over the shimmering sights he expects to see there. Musharraf also plans to build a dam on the Indus in Baltistan, and Hauptmann worries the monastery will be flooded.
In the end, the search for what is ultimately unattainable does make him somewhat melancholy. "Dams," he says, "will probably hound me until I die."
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