Others think nothing of knocking the head off a life-size Gandhara Buddhist stone – circa third century AD and worth well over pounds
Posted in General on 21. Jul, 2010
Others think nothing of knocking the head off a life-size Gandhara Buddhist stone – circa third century AD and worth well over pounds 500,000 – to fit the statue on the back of a pick-up truck.Nancy Dupree, an American scholar who has been writing about Afghanistan for more than 20 years, is one of many Western academics who believe that such wholesale looting of the country’s treasures is a matter of international importance. As their shovels split little clay idols in the mud, nobody stops to wonder what gods Balkh’s early inhabitants worshipped. The chance for scientific investigators finding out how these civilisations lived – and perished – is being lost for ever.
Balkh is one among hundreds of historical sites in Afghanistan that have been divided up by rival mujahedin commanders to be despoiled. In their frenzy for gold and silver antiquities, they smash perfume vials of iridescent glass that might have proved the existence of trade between Carthage and central Asia. In Afghanistan, however, there are no longer any archaeological expeditions.
Instead, on a rainy hillock, a few Afghan mujahedin, shaggy barbarians with AK- 47s, stand guard while more than 100 men and boys swarm over a ruined mound. Shovelling, burrowing, and gouging with pickaxes, they churn up the muddy testimony of two millennia. But what ruins: these are the sort that have archaeologists down on their knees, excitedly scratching away at the earth with a toothbrush. Zoroastrianism, Greek pantheism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Islam have all held sway in Balkh; since 2,000 BC, wave after wave of conquerors – Persians, Greeks, Indians, Mongols – have destroyed and re-built the city, leaving behind a layered testimony of man’s history as clear as the rings on a tree Today, only ruins remain. Orchids naturally occur on poor soils and do not thrive on rich feeds. Feed relatively heavily if you water your plant with rainwater rather than tap water, as rainwater has fewer minerals Feed only when the plant is in growth (“How do you tell?” asked one novice. “The plant is getting bigger,” said Sandra patiently.) They take a rest after flowering..
BALKH has been called the “mother of cities”. Set on the edge of the central Asian desert, in the lee of the Hindu Kush mountain range of northern Afghanistan, it was for many centuries an impossibly exotic crossroads of civilisations. These require more light as well as a cooler environment – a cool windowsill is ideal For a cool, light balcony or garden, choose a cymbidium. These should be kept indoors from September to May, but for the rest of the year will prefer to be outside.
Cymbidiums often sulkily refuse to flower and in 99 cases out of 100 this is because they are not experiencing a wide enough range of temperature in the day – they need to get cool at night in the summer to encourage flowering. “If you want a phalaenopsis and you’re not prepared to heat your home, or a cymbidium when you’ve just had central heating put in, you’ve got a problem,” says Sandra Bell. “It’s much easier to think first, rather than attempt to modify your entire life around your orchid. And while most of us might like to visit a rainforest, we don’t want to live in one.”WATERING: Always water from the top; any decaying matter in the bottom of the pot will be pushed upwards into the roots if you water from the bottom, but be flushed out by top watering.
Give the plant a good deluge but don’t leave it to stand in water. It needs more when the compost is dry to about halfway down the pot Use rainwater if possible, or tap water. “Orchids like quantity not quality, so don’t use Perrier – it has been known,” says Sandra Bell. “People love their orchids and want the best for them, but in fact mineral waters have far too many dissolved salts in them.”FEEDING: Feed your plant every other watering, with a proprietory orchid food or houseplant fertiliser at one-tenth the recommended dilution. If you can maintain a minimum of 11 degrees, choose a cloud-forest orchid that is adapted to cooler temperatures – perhaps a miltonia, a vuystekeara or an odontocidium.