These are the ruins of Tashkurghan, a city that once housed a thousand shops and a score of caravanserais. This was a stop on one of the many branches of the Silk Route. It was also an important town on the road between India and Samarkand and the slave market for Uzbekistan. Slaves from the subcontinent were driven over the mountains, and en route many died from exposure to the unaccustomed cold and altitude. Today this mountain range is called by a name first coined in the 14th century: Hindu Kush, which means "Hindu Killers." Though its citizens usually still refer to the town by its Turkish name "Tahskurghan," on maps it is identified as Khulm, its name in Persian, the language of the bureaucrats in Kabul who have traditionally run the government for the Pushtun rulers.

A26. Tashkurghan

Tashkurghan (Khulm), Afghanistan, January 1975, 35 mm, Pentax ES, 50 mm SMCT lens, High Speed Ektachrome film, Dye transfer print 1984, ŠLuke Powell, 1996.