Expert brushes off dust to reveal ‘magical’ history of Makran

Karachi
The 13th century was the golden age of trading and sharing of knowledge – the “magical moment” when the West and the Orient met. It was in those days that Makran served as a natural East-West and North-South road.
“The 13th century was a period of expansion of knowledge in all directions: artistic, scientific, geographical and philosophical. A new atmosphere pervaded and animated European culture and its courts,” Prof Dr Valeria Piacentini, a reputed Italian scholar, historian, and archaeologist, said while delivering a lecture at the Area Study Centre for Europe, University of Karachi on Wednesday.
“It [Makran] represents the natural access of link and has always been practiced not for warfare but trade. Pearls, silk, horses, semi-precious stones, various qualities of cloths like velvets and brocades from China and Central Asia, glass, bowls and metal objects wonderfully chiselled attracted merchants from every corner of the world since very ancient times.”
The topic of Piacentini’s lecture was ‘History through archival and scientific sources’. She has worked in Makran and Sindh. Since 1986 she has remained the director of a research project focusing on the patterns of settlement in Makran and Kharan, Balochistan and the history of the people in the region. The archaeologist is currently heading the French-Italian-Pakistani excavation team in Banbhore, Sindh.

Oman and Sindh
“It was in the 30s of 13th century that ties between Oman and Sindh grew, not only for trade but also for intellectual exchange through the scholars of that time,” Piacentini said.
Describing Sindh and India’s deltaic region among the main participants in the international network of land and sea trade, Piacentini said the state archives of Genoa gave a clear perception that in the second half of the 13th century, direct trade between Genoese bases and the East was well established and took place on a regular basis.
“The Iranian world of the ancient times, the Turkic world and the great Indian centres and markets were the main commercial partners of Genoa.”
Piacentini noted that within the shared perspective of encouraging cultural experiences in urban spaces and territories, effective joint projects aimed at knowledge-creation among and between peoples and regions could be created.
Until November 2011, Piacentini was also a full-time professor of history at the institute of Muslim countries in the Catholic University of Milan. Now she is the scientific director of the Research Centre on the Southern System and Wider Mediterranean, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan.