Historical Context and Architectural Heritage of a Walled City Bhera, Punjab

Abstract

The historic walled town of Bhera is located on the left bank of the River Jhelum, within the District of Sargodha, in the Province of Punjab, Pakistan. It possessed a remarkably compressed and complex history of south Asia urban and architectural heritage within a limited and little documented settlement area. The Old Town of Bhera, recognised by the nineteenth century surveyors as the old city of Sopheites, an Alexander contemporary, became fortified in 1540 CE, with the rule of Sher Shah Suri, and later influenced by Mughal, Sikh, and British rule, features a number of surviving gateways, a sixteenth century congregational mosque, carvings from Hindu temples and Sikh gurdwara, a railway station built in the 19^th century, and has a strong domestic carved architectural style, characterised by the jharokas (projecting balconies) and carved wooden doors. This study provided a historical and descriptive analysis of the urban development and built heritage of Bhera, on the historic mosque of Bhera, and all the craft and trade of the artisans, and a photographic record of all Bhera monuments during the field survey. Bhera's heritage was found to be highly rich but not well documented in the formal academic literature and is vulnerable to neglect, encroachment and unsupervised alteration of its built fabric. The study suggested that Bhera is important architectural and cultural heritage research, architecture studies and conservation policies in Pakistan and proposed a direction for the systematic documentation of the site going forward.