By Iftikhar Ahmed
ISLAMABAD, Jul 9 (APP):Preserving history and artifacts at museums keeps future generations of any motherland abreast of knowledge and past glory where a few racks bearing memorable heritage reveal the saga of ages.
It is very plausible when people entering a museum join a world of criss-cross timelines of history with the relics and artifacts displayed over there telling untold stories and unrecognized memories of quaint times.
“Don’t go to a museum with a destination. Museums are wormholes to other worlds. They are ecstasy machines. Follow your eyes to wherever they lead you…and the world should begin to change for you,” once said the Pulitzer prize winner American art critic Jerry Saltz.
Therefore, the museums are not the graves of past but archives of history and culture whereby every single object resuscitates and pulsates life. Such a ‘wormhole to the other worlds’ is the “Multan Museum.”
“Likely to be ready by December this year, the Multan Museum would unfold the history of ancient Multan and ethnic and geographical saga of Mooltani culture and politics,” said Muhammad Hassan, Deputy Director Archaeology South Punjab.
“It would be yet another feather in the cap of Multani culture revealing ancient times to younger generation and art and history lovers,” he said.
The project carrying a tentative cost of Rs 80 million was approved in 2021-22 after a decade long struggle and aspirations of the students, intellectuals and academia of South Punjab.
After its approval almost a decade back, it had remained under execution for quite some time but was then shelved declaring it unsuitable due to noise and dust pollution and for security reasons.
The then DCO Multan Naseem Sadiq dismantled its parking space in 2012 for expansion of city’s main artery passing through the traffic-and-trade-busy Ghanta Ghar cross-section.
“The Punjab government had approved in year 2012 to convert a century old Victorian era clock tower located in the heart of city, into a museum at an estimated cost of Rs 40 million,” recalled Malik Ghulam Muhammad, the then Incharge Archaeology Department Multan.
“It was our long desire to have a museum in Multan and we continued struggle for it despite all odds,” he stated and revealed how he persuaded the then Secretary Tourism Punjab, Ehsaan Bhutta and Member Board of Revenue Babar Hayat Tarar to get approved 10 kanal land for the museum.
He said Wapda wanted this six-Kanal Nazool land to build a grid station but after their proposal failed, we moved forward to have a museum on this land.
“Multanites are finally having a museum right in front of archaeology office Multan – at the feet of historical Qasim fort mound and just a few hundred yards far from previous site of clock tower,” he said joyously.
Coming from the ancient Greek and Roman mythologies, the word “mouseion” – “the Seat of Muses” mentions to each of nine goddesses, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who preside over the arts and sciences and was used as a philosophical institution or a place for contemplation. The origin shows that the museums we see now-a-days are developed in a way to serve as centers of learning, knowledge, especially for students and researchers.
Being constructed with an aim of depicting our history and culture the Multan museum houses four galleries, a library-cum-meeting hall, laboratory, cafeteria, vast parking space, boundary wall with gates and a breast wall against the slope of Qasim Fort.
Around 80 per cent of the work is completed with signs of Mughal era Muslim architecture – a visible main dome is curved but slightly flat at the centre of roof and 16 domelets, eight above the front and four each on left and right sides. Facade of the museum is decorated with Multani glazed tiles in traditional shades of blue depicting geometrical designs.
“Multan has 5000 years old history that qualified it to have a museum,” remarked columnist, comic writer and Secretary General Multan Tea House, Khalid Masud Khan. “It could have been done much earlier. But, it is still heartening to know that Multaniites are finally going to have this facility later this year.”
Recalling his childhood, Khalid Masud said, decades back he had seen many articles of historical significance like 8-10 Maunds heavy stone inscribed with lines in Arabic and Persian languages at ‘Nigar Khana’, a shop selling traditional and novelty items at Qasim fort.
“Such artifacts and those kept in stores of archaeology department and the collection of some traditional families of South Punjab should be displayed at Multan museum,” he said.
“People should be requested to decorate the museum with whatever articles of historical significance they have.”
Renowned columnist Shakir Hussain Shakir also opined that remains and articles discovered during excavation of Multan sites by archaeologists Mirza Ibn-e-Hanif and Zubair Shafi Ghauri, presently placed at Seraiki Research Centre of BZU can also be brought to Multan museum.
“Once we have a museum, it is time to display here our preserved artifacts and heritage to reveal the ancient Mooltan to our younger generation,” he stated. “Let us do it together to preserve our ancient assets.”