PESHAWAR: Recently, French envoy and her family walked up from 19th century Sethi House to historical compound of Gor Khathree, at a distance of few steps, on her visit to Peshawar city.

These few steps of the foreign diplomat, touring with her family, can be termed a huge step that dispels the impression that Peshawar or for that matter Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is unsafe for tourists.

Who knew the archaeological sites or as some would say the places of the dead would awaken the interest of foreign tourists and researchers in this region.

Since 9/11, a misperception had stopped many diplomats, foreign tourists, pilgrims and even research scholars from visiting the bustling Peshawar city -- South Asia’s oldest living city. “Interest of foreign researchers and religious tourists is reviving in the province,” officials of archaeology, museum and sports department claimed.

Officials say students of American, European universities contacting them to come to the province for research

They said that visits of monks, religious tourists, foreign delegations and more importantly historic and archaeological revelations were once again awakening the interest of scholars from abroad in the centre of Gandhara Civilisation.

“Around 122 monks or Buddhist religious tourists from Sri Lanka and South Korea visited Khyber Pakhtunkhwa during the last two years or so. It was unprecedented,” said the officials.

Since 2015, excavations and explorations in places like Rehman Dheri in Dera Ismail Khan, Bamala in Haripur and various international symposiums and exhibitions have attracted interest of foreign scholars as well as religious tourists from Buddhist countries.

Officials said that Khyber Pakhutnkhwa government made Pakistan the first Muslim country recently to exhibit Buddhist artifacts in South Korea, having religious and historic links with the province.

“Researchers and archaeology students from American and European universities are contacting us to let them come here for further research in archaeology,” said officials.

An American researcher working in Harrapa, an archaeological site in Punjab, wants to come and work in Rehman Dheri, a pre-Harappan archaeological site, which dates back to 4,000 BC.

Rehman Dheri came to limelight when a symposium was held that was also attended by international scholars.

For about 20 years, there was no work done on the archaeological site but it was resuming the excavation work in 2015 that drew attention of scholars from all over the world including India. The scientific mapping and samples tested in the US laboratories also tempted the American scholars to get involved here more.

In Khanpur area of Haripur district, on the other hand, Buddhist site of Bhamala not only attracted tourists but also scholars after excavations here pushed the Buddhist era art further back to third century from 6th Century AD.

University of Oxford, UK, and University of Wisconsin, the USA, have shown interest in further research at Bhamala Buddhist site. “Four projects involving University of Oxford and SOAS London, Bohum University Germany, and an Italian University have been launched after the initiatives taken home at Bhamala stirred them up,” said officials.

“Now students from foreign universities want to come for research to places like Swat and Bhamala,” said an official, who supervises excavation and research at archaeological sites.

The Chinese officials with whom MoUs have been already signed now want to get engaged in places like Chitral for further research. “The exhibition of Buddhist artifacts in Seoul, South Korea was also an effort to boost religious tourism in the province,” said officials.

Published in Dawn, August 3rd, 2017