Iranian Plateau

Iranian Plateau

"Atmaran, Hindoo of Peshawar" is the title of a coloured lithograph made by E. Walker (d. 1882), based on the work of James Rattray (1818-1854), who was based in Afghanistan during the First Anglo-Afghan war (1838-1842). Atmaram was a Hindu from Peshawar in modern northern Pakistan, who had become the 'minister' of a local Muslim and Uzbek ruler in northern Afghanistan, Mohammed Murad Beg of Kunduz. 

A photograph by Antoin Sevruguin (1835-1933) shows corporal punishment being carried out in an embroidery workshop in Iran. The photograph was taken around 1880. 

Ghulam Haidar Khan was a son of Dost Mohammed Khan, emir of Afghanistan. This lithograph is by E. Walker and based on the work of James Rattray (1818-1854), who joint the British Indian forces that invaded Afghanistan in 1838 during the First Anglo-Afghan War (1838-1842) and who made numerous drawings and water colours of Afghanistan and its people.

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London holds a water colour by Godfrey Vigne, who was a British adventurer who in the 1830's travelled in the Indo-Iranian borderlands. This water colour shows a wrestler with his characteristic knee-length, embroidered shorts, which he wears in the zur khana, or 'house of strength'.