1884 Perron map HERAT, AFGHANISTAN, #18

Description: Perron09_018 1884 Perron map HERAT, AFGHANISTAN, #18 Nice small map titled Herat, from wood engraving with fine detail and clear impression. Overall size approx. 16 x 13.5 cm, image size approx. 11 x 9.5 cm. From La Nouvelle Géographie universelle, la terre et les hommes, 19 vol. (1875-94), great work of Elisee Reclus. Cartographer is Charles Perron. Herat, also spelled Harat, city in western Afghanistan, lying on the Harirud River, south of the Sefid Kuh (Paropamisus Range), at an elevation of 3,026 feet (922 metres). Herat is the focus of one of the country's most densely populated and fertile agricultural areas, irrigated from the Harirud. It is a highway crossroads and the economic centre of western Afghanistan. Several ancient cities have stood near the site of Herat. The highly productive agricultural area watered by the Harirud was known in ancient times as Ariea (Old Persian: Haraiva). The area is mentioned in the Avesta, the sacred text of the Zoroastrians, and appears in the Achaemenid inscription at Bisitun (c. 520 BCE). The Macedonian conquerer Alexander the Great took control of the area in 330 BCE. The capital of Ariea, Artacoana, was subdued, and a new city named Alexandria in Ariea was constructed with a fortress at the city centre. It remains uncertain whether Alexandria in Ariea was built on the site of Artacoana and whether the site of modern Herat corresponds to either. During the Sasanian period the city increased in importance as a trading centre and also served as an outpost in the Sasanian wars with the Hephthalites. The Arabs captured Herat in 660 CE, and Islam soon became the dominant religion. An invasion by Mongols in 1221–22 destroyed the city and inflicted great suffering. Herat was then rebuilt by the local Kartid dynasty before Timur (Tamerlane), the Turkic conqueror, took it about 1380. Herat's greatest era was during the Timurid rule. Timur's son Shah Rokh transferred the Timurid capital from Samarkand to Herat, where he rebuilt the citadel and the bazaar. Science and culture flourished in the city under the patronage of Shah Rokh and his successors. The production of books was especially prominent, and an important school of miniature painting arose in Herat, exemplified by the work of Kamal al-Din Behzad. Shah Rokh's wife Gawhar Shad also left a lasting imprint on the city, commissioning a religious complex that included a mosque, a madrasah, and her own mausoleum. The Iranian ?afavid dynasty took control of Herat in 1507. Following a revolt by the Abdali Afghans in 1716, the city alternated between Iranian and Afghan rule. Beginning in the 1830s, the Iranian Qajar dynasty's claim to Herat was opposed by Great Britain, which sought the establishment of an independent Afghan state to shield British India from Russian encroachment. The Anglo-Persian war of 1856–57 forced the Qajar shah, Na?er al-Din Shah, to withdraw from Herat and acknowledge it as Afghan territory. However, the Afghan central government's control of Herat remained weak until the territorial and political consolidation carried out during the reign of ?Abd al-Ra?man Khan. Even then the city remained somewhat isolated from the rest of Afghanistan; the Herat-Kandahar highway, built with Soviet assistance in 1960, was the first modern road to connect Herat to another major Afghan city. In March 1979 Heratis and Afghan soldiers garrisoned in Herat staged an uprising against Afghanistan's communist government, attacking officials and killing about 100 Soviet advisers. The Soviet air force bombed the city in retaliation, killing as many as 20,000 people. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the end of the year, Soviet forces gained control of the city from Afghan guerrillas in early 1980 and established a military command there. The city fell to the Pashtun Taliban movement in 1995, but the Taliban struggled to exert control over the primarily Persian-speaking populace. Herat is dominated by its citadel, which was constructed between the 13th and 15th centuries and restored in the 1970s. The city's Friday Mosque, begun in the 13th century, has been expanded and restored several times. Gawhar Shad's religious complex has been largely destroyed; the mosque and madrasah were demolished by British engineers in the 1880s to fortify the city against a possible Russian attack, but her mausoleum and several minarets remain at the site. A shrine held in high veneration is the tomb of the poet and saint ?Abd Allah al-An?ari, situated on rising ground north of the city; it was built by the Timurid Shah Rokh. Herat has wide main streets, extensive bazaars, and some light industry, including handicrafts, textile weaving, cotton ginning, and rice, flour, and oilseed milling. There is an active trade in Karakul furs. An airport is nearby. Pop. (2009 est.) 395,400.

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