The Austrian Science Fund (FWF)-funded project Shahi – Cultural Formation and Transformation: Shahi Art and Architecture from Afghanistan to the West Tibetan Frontier at the Dawn of the Islamic Era, led by Deborah Klimburg-Salter is carried out at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Documentation of Inner and South Asian Cultural History at the University of Vienna and supported by both the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien and the ACDH.

The goal of the project “is to define a narrative cultural history of the Shahi kingdoms (7th to 10th century). Due to their extensive temporal and geographic parameters — extending from Afghanistan to the borders of the Tibetan empire — the kingdoms played a pivotal role in the history of Inner and South Asia. Despite its importance for the history of later Buddhist art and the formation of Islamic art, the cultural history of this almost 300-year period has never been the focus of dedicated research.

This research makes a major contribution to digital humanities through the innovative methods used to explain for the first time the cultural history of a vast area that is of tremendous geographic and temporal significance (today within the modern states of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India). A central element of our research is to document and systematize comprehensive data, cross referencing the entire corpus of the material culture of the vast Shahi kingdoms. The resultant database will be linked to the Digital Maps of the Shahi kingdoms and the Bibliographic Database (BibDB). Modern digital methods will allow the quantitative and qualitative analysis of primary sources (texts; inscriptions; numismatic, art historical, and archaeological data) plus completely new data derived from the analysis of the materials and techniques of manufacture of three groups of artifacts.” (Source)

An additional FWF project funds the simultaneous analogue and digital publication of the results of the project.

The ACDH acts as a cooperation partner for the project via OpenAtlas, a database software that enables the collection, processing, and management of research data and serves as the basis for the project’s web application.