Khyber Pakhtunkhwa: Valleys, Museums and Architecture

Kalasha valleys, historic buildings and a range of museum themes give Khyber Pakhtunkhwa a distinctive cultural and scenic character. For your trip, you can choose between remote mountain scenery, religious customs and specific museum or architectural stories. The Bumburet, Rumbur and Birir valleys are part of the Kalasha Cultural Landscape; museums and the Sethi House offer their own cultural history topics. This brings several questions together: What kind of landscape shapes a place, what traditions are practised there, and what stories do a museum or building tell?

Landscape and living traditions

The Bumburet, Rumbur and Birir valleys of the Kalasha Cultural Landscape are geographically remote and surrounded by rugged mountain terrain. Within this same landscape, sacred sites have religious and ritual significance. They are used for worship, ritual offerings and seasonal ceremonies, and are regarded as places of communication with deities. Rituals based on traditional customs are still regularly performed there. The valleys’ distinctive topography and enduring religious practices are thus both part of the landscape. When weighing your interests, you can consider both the remote mountain scenery and the seasonal ceremonies and traditional customs.

Museums: founding and exhibits

In the Chitral District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Chitral Museum was established on 8 July 2010. The Peshawar Museum was founded in November 1907 to house Gandhara sculptures from Shah-Ji-Ki-Dheri in Peshawar, Sahri Bahlol and Takht-i-Bahi in the Mardan District; later, Jamal Garhi and other Gandhara sites were added as places of origin. The two institutions offer different historical perspectives: the specific founding date is central to the Chitral Museum, while the Peshawar Museum is distinguished by its original purpose of housing sculptures from several named locations. A founding date and an original purpose tell different kinds of museum history.

The ethnographic section of the Swat Museum displays local embroidery, wood carvings and antique jewellery from Swat. This adds a specific look at ethnographic exhibits to the history of the museums’ founding and purpose. Comparing the museums reveals distinct areas of focus: the founding of the Chitral Museum, the Peshawar Museum’s historical focus on Gandhara sculptures, and the ethnographic objects at the Swat Museum.

Architecture in Peshawar

The Sethi House adds architecture to the museum and landscape themes. It is located in a small lane in Sethi Mohalla, near the historic Ghanta Ghar in Peshawar. Rare woodwork and architectural designs define the house; these are considered Muslim and Central Asian art. The location details—the lane, mohalla and Ghanta Ghar—provide a specific point of reference within Peshawar. The woodwork and design, by contrast, draw attention to the house’s architecture. Its location and art-historical classification thus represent two different aspects of this building.

Pakistan as a broader travel destination

The wider travel destination of Pakistan offers further historical sites and different perspectives. Taxila, in Pakistan’s Punjab province, is an extensive series of archaeological sites that includes a Mesolithic cave, the remains of four early settlements, Buddhist monasteries, a mosque and a madrasa. Also in Pakistan’s Punjab province, Rohtas Fort was built in the 16th century at a strategic location in the north. Its main fortification includes massive walls extending over four kilometres, 68 bastions and 12 monumental gates. In the broader context of Pakistan, an archaeological site series and an extensive fortress complex can thus be found side by side.

Discover more destinations

Peshawar District, Battagram District, Khanspur, Koka, Chitral, Malam Jabba, Abbottabad, Mingora, Ayubia, Saidu Sharif

Back to the main travel overview: Pakistan.