Kabul Museum Project: An initiative of the University of Vienna and the National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul

The National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul is the primary repository in Afghanistan for safeguarding objects uncovered by archaeological excavations across the country. This invaluable cultural heritage and its custodians face many risks and obstacles. During more than thirty years of war, the entire infrastructure in Afghanistan was destroyed, including substantial damage and neglect to the National Museum and its collection. Desperate poverty and deepening social divisions driven by external interests continue to challenge economic and political stability. The dedicated men and women in the National Museum believe that their work is essential to the revitalization of an Afghan national identity and to the peace-building process. As custodians of Afghanistan’s long and glorious cultural history, they continue working to protect their heritage in the face of daily conflict and threats to the security of the museum and themselves as well as limited access to further education and resources.

Since 2005, the interdisciplinary Kabul Museum Project—a cooperation between the University of Vienna and the National Museum of Afghanistan, Kabul—has offered a diverse series of programs to support the “Kabul Museum” and exchange knowledge about Afghanistan’s rich cultural heritage. It remains the only program providing art historical and object-based education for the museum’s curatorial staff and is therefore critical for the preservation and interpretation of its collections.

Curatorial training seminars and intensive workshops in art history, archaeology, numismatics, computer science, and museum studies have been held in person together with leading experts at renowned museums and research institutions in Kabul, Kyoto/Tokyo, New Delhi, and Vienna as well as online.

The project has been conducted in the context of the former National Research Network “The Cultural History of the Western Himalaya (CHWH)” and the Research Platform “Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Documentation of Inner and South Asian Cultural History (CIRDIS),” both of which were directed by Univ.-Prof. Dr. Deborah Klimburg-Salter.

It has been made possible through the generous financial support of the Gerda Henkel Stiftung (2005 to present), The Barakat Trust (2007-2011), Oxford, and UNESCO (2005).

As of August 2021, there have been major political upheavals and dramatic changes in Afghanistan. The University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, together with their new cooperation partner Harvard University, actively continue to support the cultural heritage of Afghanistan and its custodians.