DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.36956#0031
of the region, to the construction of a new road from the Indus up to the
village, and though this is very little used by vehicles since the felling
ceased in March 1987, the link with the Karakorum Highway below
(opened in 1979) has exposed the small, secluded valley to outside in-
fluence. This can be recognised in three new houses, larger and con-
spicuously less modest than the traditional ones, which dominate the
sprawling development outside the old walls. A further growth is taking
place higher up the valley, where the number of houses was large
enough in 1987 to justify the building of a new mosque there: it will
plainly become a separate village in a few years. One villager has built
his own homestead and tower in the middle of the fields between the old
and new settlements. Although the building techniques are still similar
to the older ones, the character of the new housing is quite distinct; one
can foresee the time when the old village core will be abandoned in
favour of more spacious, airier, and better-lit quarters even if, m their
present form, these are less well adapted to the climate than the tradi-
tional type.
In the course of his field work since 1971, Professor Karl Jettmar had
become increasingly aware of the extent to which the former building
tradition had been destroyed, or at best disturbed. He was astonished,
then, when in 1982 he visited Sazin and found it an almost unspoiled
example of the village fortress. In 1987 he was able, through the
generous funding of the To7:wAuMgygom 77.SY.'/?o/i, to send me
to make a survey of the village, to be followed by a wider, though more
cursory series of visits to other valleys to establish my findings in
context. The funding was for five months m the field.
I was at that time the first Westerner, and indeed the first researcher of
any kind, to visit the village for more than two days.
15
village, and though this is very little used by vehicles since the felling
ceased in March 1987, the link with the Karakorum Highway below
(opened in 1979) has exposed the small, secluded valley to outside in-
fluence. This can be recognised in three new houses, larger and con-
spicuously less modest than the traditional ones, which dominate the
sprawling development outside the old walls. A further growth is taking
place higher up the valley, where the number of houses was large
enough in 1987 to justify the building of a new mosque there: it will
plainly become a separate village in a few years. One villager has built
his own homestead and tower in the middle of the fields between the old
and new settlements. Although the building techniques are still similar
to the older ones, the character of the new housing is quite distinct; one
can foresee the time when the old village core will be abandoned in
favour of more spacious, airier, and better-lit quarters even if, m their
present form, these are less well adapted to the climate than the tradi-
tional type.
In the course of his field work since 1971, Professor Karl Jettmar had
become increasingly aware of the extent to which the former building
tradition had been destroyed, or at best disturbed. He was astonished,
then, when in 1982 he visited Sazin and found it an almost unspoiled
example of the village fortress. In 1987 he was able, through the
generous funding of the To7:wAuMgygom 77.SY.'/?o/i, to send me
to make a survey of the village, to be followed by a wider, though more
cursory series of visits to other valleys to establish my findings in
context. The funding was for five months m the field.
I was at that time the first Westerner, and indeed the first researcher of
any kind, to visit the village for more than two days.
15