Kandahar in 1881

In 2013, the Getty Research Institute acquired an album of nineteenth-century photographs thought to be the earliest ever taken of Kandahar in Afghanistan. The "Album of Kandahar" was assembled by a British medical officer toward the end of the Second Afghan War, 1879-1881.

Kandahar is supposed to have been founded by Alexander the Great in 329 BC. It sits where ancient trade routes from India, Persia and Central Asia cross, in a district of fertile, irrigated land. In 1761 one of the founders of modern Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah, made it his capital, rebuilding the fortifications and making other improvements.

Ahmad Shah's tomb dominated the center of the city.

The Second Afghan War was a British invasion of Afghanistan from India, using a mix of British and Indian troops. The pretext was that Sher Ali Khan, the Afghan ruler, had received a Russian diplomatic delegation but then refused to admit a British one; the British, suffering from nightmares in which Russia's expansion across Asia took them all the way to India, sent an expedition to teach the Afghans not to tilt toward the Tsar. They defeated the Afghans in two battles, marched to Kabul, and forced Ali to become a British client. 

The British/Indian army then withdrew, but as soon as they were safely back over the mountains Ali's younger son Ayub Khan seized power and killed the British ambassador and all the other Brits he could get his hands on. This triggered a second British invasion, which defeated Ayub's forces in a decisive battle at Kandahar. (Which is why the whole British army was there, including their photographer.) Afghanistan then settled down to being a buffer state between the Russian and British empires. Ayub's ambassadors are shown above.

The Getty has published the photographs in a book with a lot of commentary, which you can download for free here.

I find these photographs to be a wonderful glimpse of the past.