Description
Dir Museum also known as Chakdara Museum is located in Chakdara, Lower Dir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The Museum offers a fine and unique collection of Gandharan Art. Dir museum is based on history of Dir which is most important both historically and culturally and the history goes back to the 2nd millennium BC.Chakdara Museum is situated on the way to Dir and Chitral two Km from the bridge of Chakdara, a district of Khyber PakhtunKhwa, situated in the north of Malakand. In this museum, well arranged sculptures of Buddhist Gandharan have been kept. These sculptures are thousand years old and are of great importance. Chakdara Museum was designed by Saidal Khan. The architect of the museum has kept the ancient style in his mind and built it with Malakandi Stone. This stone reflects the strength of locals. This museum has a beautiful appearance with arch-shaped entrance and with 2 square towers. Chakdara Museum was a museum of the state in the beginning but it was taken under the control of provisional Govt. This government constitutes a group of governors to run the affairs of Chakdara museum. G. Azhar khan laid the foundation stone of museum on 20th September, 1970. Later on, the museum was inaugurated by retired Fazl e Haq on 30th May, 1979. Thepurpose of building this museum was to display sculptors, jewelry, and weapons etc. The museum has a cluster of almost 2000 objects having approximately 1500 Gandharan pieces. The cluster includes the birth stories of Buddha, symbols of worship and the Buddha sculptors. Important portion of Buddha life includes the marriage, castle life, school, first meditation, first sermon at Sarnath, jewelry, weapons, etc. Other big size Buddha statues are also included in the collection. Another gallery founded in 1977 consists of almost 500 objects including the dresses, furniture, household utensils, and ceramics, etc.
