About a thousand years ago, Al-Muqaddasi, an Arab geographer of the Middle Ages, wrote in his book The Best Divisions in the Knowledge of the Regions that there were 2,200 villages in Mastung, a district in Balochistan. Most of the world’s oldest civilisations grew along rivers because water is a source for fishing and hunting and the land around rivers is fertile. However, ancient civilisations thrived even in areas where there were no rivers.

In Balochistan, except for Mehrgarh, civilisations were completely different from the river civilisations because they were founded around karezes — a system of irrigation via underground tunnels that passed from Makran to Kandahar.

As there were 360 karezes in Mastung at that time when Al-Muqaddasi was writing his book, many villages thrived there with about three to four villages populating around one karez. The world’s largest village system had developed around the karezes in this region, according to Ghulam Farooq Baloch, an archaeologist and assistant professor at Balochistan University’s Balochistan Study Centre. Currently, the number of villages in Mastung is not more than 250. Due to frequent draughts, the karez system has almost vanished.

The province is home to some of the most ancient of civilisations but most of its historical artefacts lie outside the province

The Mehrgarh civilisation along the Bolan River, in Balochistan, and the Indus Valley civilisation in Sindh are included among some of the oldest civilisations of the world such as the Mesopotamian civilisation in present-day Iraq and the Nile River Valley civilisation in Egypt.

Archaeologists are of the view that ancient civilisations of Balochistan have more importance than other civilisations in South Asia because they believe that human communication started from Balochistan in this region. The basis for this belief is formed by the discovery of utensils in Balochistan being similar to the ones found in nearby civilisations such as Mohenjo Daro, Kalibangan in India, Mundigak in Afghanistan, Shar-i-Sokhta in Iran and Nisa in Turkmenistan. Experts also posit that Balochistan was the centre of trade and communication during the Neolithic Period.

In the 1970s, French archaeological teams started work in Mehrgarh and unearthed an 8,000-year-old civilisation. During the excavation, human structures, statues, toys, tools and pottery were recovered. The total area of Mehrgarh is 200-acre feet (an acre foot equals one surface acre one foot deep) and the French archaeologists worked on a quarter of Mehrgarh. Ghulam Farooq Baloch of the Balochistan Study Centre, says “Yahya Amjad, Stuart Piggott, and other famous archaeologists say a huge population of the world was living in the villages of Balochistan.” After discovering Mehrgarh, French archaeologist Jean-François Jarrige claimed that around 8,000 years ago the population of Mehrgarh was 3,000.

According to Jarrige, who specialised in Sindhology and South Asian archaeology, the earliest signs of civilised life were found in Jericho, Israel and Mehrgarh, Balochistan. Earliest signs of civilised life here refer to the time when man came out of the caves and began making settlements.

Some say Balochistan is the mother of civilisation, giving birth to other civilisations. Dr M.R. Sainy, an Indian writer and anthropologist who worked on Naal — the largest tehsil of Balochistan’s Khuzdar district — says that the people of Naal are the ones who founded the base of Mohenjo Daro.

According to the Directorate of Archaeology Quetta, Balochistan has 30 discovered archaeological sites. Every site requires a separate museum and a majority of them have the capacity to offer artefacts for a huge museum. Unfortunately, this archaeologically rich province has only one small, functional museum and little space for the archaeological assets. On the other hand, a huge population remains unaware of their history and past.

The one functional museum in the whole province is located in Quetta. It consists of two small halls, where 86 archaeological objects, 130 rifles, 30 pistols, 124 swords and 108 ancient manuscripts are on display. Because of the lack of display galleries, 17,200 antiquities of Balochistan are kept in the National Museum of Karachi. According to Syed Abdul Bari Shah, assistant director at the Department of Archaeology and Museums in Quetta, because of the moisture in Karachi’s weather many of these artefacts have been damaged.

Sir Arthur Henry McMahon, a British administrator and chief commissioner of Balochistan, as well as a geologist, established a museum in Quetta in his name in 1906.

McMahon was one of the oldest museums of the subcontinent housing important artefacts of Balochistan including items of gold, copper and silver. However, in 1935 when a high-intensity earthquake jolted Quetta and its adjoining areas on May 31, resulting in at least 30,000 casualties, the museum too was destroyed.

The government of the time shifted all the artefacts of Balochistan to the Kolkata and British museums. After the creation of Pakistan, different governments continuously ignored the issue of bringing back Balochistan’s ancient and priceless archaeological treasures.

Archaeologists are of the view that Balochistan has more importance than other civilisations in South Asia because they believe that human communication started from Balochistan in this region. The basis for this belief is formed by the discovery of utensils in Balochistan being similar to the ones found in nearby civilisations such as Mohenjo Daro, Kalibangan in India, Mundigak in Afghanistan, Shar-i-Sokhta in Iran and Nisa in Turkmenistan.

After the devolution of powers as a result of the 18th constitutional amendment passed by the National Assembly in 2010, the federal government of Pakistan handed over the archaeology and culture departments to the provinces. While other provinces brought back their artefacts from various museums of the country such as Khyber Pukhtukhwa and Punjab, almost all the artefacts of Balochistan are still housed in Karachi and other museums in the country because of a lack of space and technical staff in Balochistan.

Before the 1935 earthquake, Quetta’s archaeological sites, such as Killi Kechi Beg, Damb Sadaat, Mia Ghundai, Dabarkot and Rana Ghundai in Loralai, Periano Ghundai in Zhob, Sohr Damb in Naal Khuzdar, etc. were discovered by the Archaeological Survey of India as well as archaeologists such as Stuart Piggott who discovered the 7,000-year-old Killi Gul Muhammad site near Almo Chowk in Quetta.

According to a 1934 report — titled ‘History of McMahon Museum and Balochistan Natural History Society’ — by retired extra assistant commissioner of Balochistan and an honorary secretary of the McMahon Museum, J.W.N. Cumming, 30 contributors, including archaeologists, tribal elders and departments had donated almost 1,000 zoological, botanical, archaeological and ethnological objects to the museum. All donated objects that were discovered at the sites were dumped in the McMahon Museum.

At present, there is no record of the artefacts which were shifted from McMahon Museum after the earthquake. Almost the entire collection of the McMahon Museum is now missing. It has not only destroyed Balochistan’s history, but also social and cultural treasures.

“The late Jarrige once told us at Balochistan University that his team had discovered 40,000 objects from Mehrgarh and given them all to the federal government which then shifted them to the National Museum Karachi,” says archaeologist Ghulam Baloch. “The National Museum Karachi has on display only 10 antiquities of Mehrgarh.”

According to a report published in daily Dawn on October 20, 2014, the Italian police recovered some 300 smuggled archaeological treasures of Balochistan from Rome in 2014. The stolen objects are still kept in the Pakistani Embassy in Italy. These objects have not been restituted to the Quetta Museum yet as sufficient initiatives have not been taken by the provincial government for their return.

The issue of cultural artefacts not only concerns Balochistan. Cultural treasures represent, in tangible form, some of the evidence of man’s origins and development, traditions, artistic and scientific achievements. The restitution of artefacts to their countries of origin became an international debate as some South Asian, Middle Eastern and African countries also faced similar problems. Many ancient artefacts from these countries were stolen or kept illegally by other countries in the world. Most of these artefacts represent a civilisation in its cultural context and are of paramount importance to the maintenance of national identities. Hence, these antiquities should be returned to their countries of origin as their cultural property.

According to the Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, passed by Unesco in 2003, every country should return the missing treasures and antiquities to their original owners. France has returned Kabul Museum’s antiquities after the Taliban destroyed the museum in 1996. But Balochistan still waits.

The writer is a freelance investigative journalist and can be reached at hizbupohanmal@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, November 5th, 2017