Just for a change, there’s some good news from Kabul. The Mughal India exhibition that was at the British Library is now on show at the Queens Palace, in the Babur Gardens in Kabul.
The Babur Gardens – with their 13 levels – include Babur’s Tomb, and the gardens and the tomb have been restored recently.
As might be expected, the gardens have changed substantially since Babur laid out his “avenue garden” in c.1528. The Mughal Emperor Jahangir and Shah Jahan both made changes, and the Queens Palace was built by Amir Abdur Rahman Khan (1880-1901) and bequeathed to his third wife after his death.
The earliest known representations of the gardens are watercolours from the 1830s – click here for this – and here for other early images.
The garden and all the buildings were damaged in the ongoing fighting in Kabul, but are now back to being a place of recreation and pleasure – and now not only for kings and princes.
Click here for a map, and here for a video, and here for more in-progress photos