Department of Art History

Professor Margaret Graves attended the First International Conference on Makli, a breathtaking necropolis spread over ten square kilometers near the town of Thatta, in the Pakistani province of Sindh. The site is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list and includes spectacular tomb monuments from the fourteenth century onwards, several of which are active shrine sites. Margaret delivered a paper on the Eskenazi Museum of Art’s collection of rubbings made from tombstones in the region in the early 1960s, titled “Tomb Rubbings from Sindh in Indiana University Collections.” The conference was hosted by the department of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities of the Government of Sindh and the Endowment Fund Trust for the Preservation of the Heritage of Sindh, and included international and Pakistani scholars who spoke on the history of Makli, the art and material culture of the region, and issues of cultural heritage management.