Mar 15, 2009 3:00 PM at the Caroline Wiess Law Building
Exhibition Lecture: Alexander the Great in Afghanistan: The Mythical Transformation
Sunday, March 15, 2009, at 3:00 p.m.
Presented by Dr. Michael Barry, Consultative Chairman of the Department of Islamic Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Professor, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University
Alexander the Great, the all-conquering Greek king, wedded a local Bactrian princess in what is now northern Afghanistan, re-founded Herat, Kabul, and Kandahar as so many “Alexandrias,” and accepted his mortality as he humbled himself before a mysterious, cave-dwelling hermit who is identified in the carvings of Hadda as the Buddha himself, and later, in the medieval paintings of Herat, as Khizr, the “Evergreen Prophet” of each soul´s salvation—even a king´s. Dr. Michael Barry traces the mythical transformation of the image of Alexander the Great in the arts and literatures
of Afghanistan´s successive civilizations—from the Buddhist cave sculptures of third- and fourth-century Hadda to the Islamic manuscript illuminations of fifteenth- and sixteenth century Herat.
This lecture is made possible through the generous support of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, in collaboration with His Highness Prince Aga Khan Shia Imami Ismaili Council for the Southwestern United States.
This lecture are presented in conjunction with the exhibition, Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul, on view March 1 through May 17, 2009.
Ismailimail 