Herat, one of Afghanistan’s largest provinces, is located in the southwest of the country, sharing a crucial border with Iran.
- Herat Citadel:
Towering over the old city, the Herat Citadel has watched over Herat’s successes and setbacks with its imposing gaze for centuries. The oldest building in Herat is believed to stand on the foundations of a fort built by Alexander the Great. It has served as a seat of power, military garrison and prison since its construction until 2005, when the Afghan army presented it to the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, opening its doors to outsiders for the first time. A historic exhibition of reproductions of miniatures has opened in the Citadel in Herat where many of the pictures were painted in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. At that time, Herat was a center of Islamic art and culture. In the decades that followed, as dynasties fell or moved, the miniatures were scattered, eventually ending up in collections across the world. One hundred of these tiny, precious paintings have now been photographed and enlarged using a special process that gives the reproductions what one of the organizers called “a sheen, a sparkle, a precision of detail, etc., that enables whole crowds of people to see them.
Original source: LonelyPlanet
