India somewhere in the hills
Nothing very interesting here then? The intriguing thing is that the livestock is carrying the livestock, the goats are riding on the backs of the mules! the photo is also a very sharp photo and the signpost is the main focus.
Goats on mules India
It is not often you get to know exactly where an old photo was taken. To try to pinpoint where this photo is, I thought that I could use all the place names on the sign to find the place on the map. Only it wasn’t all that simple. I discovered a “radius” option in some developer forum for drawing circles in Google maps.
Sign to key locations in India
This helped me pin down the rough area. By adding more circles and more names I got a fairly good placement of where this photo was taken. In the last hundred years, I have no doubt the topography has changed but I just wanted to make an attempt at finding where. The names may have fallen out of favour too. I added what I could to the map.
Map of India with zoned
The above shows the approximate location of the photo. Is this the best way to go about it?
There are many images in the collection but it is hard to tell where any of them are taken. The only clues are rubble hills and rough ground… Sad in a way as spectacular images of troops riding on mass through the hills, wearing Bombay Bowler Pith Helmets and even stopping for tea Does anyone know of the key movement of troops in WW1 through India and Afghanistan? Maybe this knowledge help identify where some of my images were taken? Can you help? Please add a comment if you can add something to help me out. Thank you.
Dear Neil,
It is a dated photograph, but I believe it was taken at the border of what then separated Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan was at that time a part of British India, while Afghanistan was a separate territory that remained neutral during World War I.
Why I think so is because of this RAF Command photograph bit.ly/2hrV2JH which predates yours. It is exact same place, only they had put up one side of the triangular board by then. It is captioned ‘Border Crossing’.
Wana (or Tana, sometimes spelled Tanai) is the nearest place, and it is close to the modern-day border as well. In another article bit.ly/2h3Q6xl the writer mentions that Wana is where the Waziristan Delimitation Commission set up camp in 1894 to determine the borders of British India and Afghanistan. The Commission was provided with security by British troops under the command of Brigadier General Turner. However, tribesmen attacked the camp, and it was left to Lt. General Sir William Lockhart to come to the rescue.
Your picture shows Tana is 13 miles away, but the plain of Wana is 13 miles long, and the camp was located the easternmost end of the plain. You can read more about the battle at bit.ly/2gjeaNy and bit.ly/2glavFy
In 2008, there was a border skirmish in the same area when Pakistan fired at American helicopters in Tana/Tanai/Wana. Wikipedia has an article under the name ‘Tanai incident’.
So I am of the opinion that more than a World War I photograph, yours is older, dating back to 1895. It was most likely taken when British troops regained control of the area following the attack on the camp. The military response and the counter-response were nothing short of a full battle, named ‘Waziristan 1894’ (this was how soldiers received their battle honours).
-Toby, modern-day India
Thank you for you in-depth reply. The person who owns these photos is now getting old and immobile and alas his memory might not be a sharp as it should be. However there were a large number of accompanying photos with this showing various stages along a long marching route with a large number of troops and encampments and “posts” along the route. One of the photos from the exact same march and route and set of photos appears here https://image-restore.co.uk/blog/old-photos-show-humans-will-picnic-anywhere/ middle picture. Would this help place the timing of the photo at the road junction? Also the photo paper they were printed on was more modern looking than a paper of 1894.