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Boat Builders Keep Pakistan’s Fishing Heritage Afloat

This photograph taken on July 8, 2026 shows traditional wooden boats at a yard in Ibrahim Hyderi in Karachi. (AFP)
This photograph taken on July 8, 2026 shows traditional wooden boats at a yard in Ibrahim Hyderi in Karachi. (AFP)
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Boat Builders Keep Pakistan’s Fishing Heritage Afloat

This photograph taken on July 8, 2026 shows traditional wooden boats at a yard in Ibrahim Hyderi in Karachi. (AFP)
This photograph taken on July 8, 2026 shows traditional wooden boats at a yard in Ibrahim Hyderi in Karachi. (AFP)

The rhythmic hammering of nails and the whine of saws echo around a coastal Karachi neighborhood, where small figures of men work atop massive wooden fishing hulls that loom beneath a pale summer sky.

Ibrahim Hyderi, a maritime town on the outskirts of the port city believed to date back centuries, is renowned for the construction of traditional fishing boats.

"This is the area that gave birth to Karachi, and that provided Karachi with its fishing sector," said Mehran Ali Shah of the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum, which advocates for the local community.

Despite the rise of industrial shipbuilding, such practices -- where handcrafted vessels are assembled timber by timber -- have stood their ground.

Boat-builder Muhammad Asif, 22, learnt the craft from his father as a teenager, and is now proud that he can work on his own.

"I was drawn to this work, so I work at it with great dedication," Asif tells AFP as sawdust coats his face and sun-bleached hair.

"It has always been my passion, that is why I chose this line of work."

Asif, like other workers, starts at 7:00 am every day and heads home for dinner around 7:00 pm, only putting down his tools during a two-hour lunch break.

He earns up to 2,500 Pakistani rupees ($9) a day, working six days a week.

The workers brave the elements all year round, including the sweltering heat and humidity of summers and the soaking rains of the monsoon seasons.

The process begins with a fisherman selecting a boat design. A master craftsman drafts a template and the workers take it from there, drawing on their years of experience to painstakingly build the vessel.

The carpenters choose from different types of timber, such as local eucalyptus wood, or African teak for resilience against seawater.

The heavy blocks of wood are carefully cut using well-worn vertical and other saws, following hand-drawn pencil markings.

The boats are then assembled from the ground up, block by block and nail by nail, with the workers clambering up on rickety ladders as the hulls rise higher.

The time-consuming process means even a small boat measuring just several meters long could take up to three months to construct and cost one million Pakistani rupees ($3,600), Asif says.

Across the yard, the completed boats are given splashes of color by painter Muhammad Ismail.

The weather-beaten 38-year-old, his hands and nails tinged with blue, is painting petals on the hull of a vessel -- one of many he has worked on over a decade.

"Most of our fishermen prefer floral designs rather than fish," he tells AFP, adding that he experiences "great satisfaction" when an owner appreciates his artwork.

"Some people ask me to create a design according to my own ideas, while others tell me exactly what they want."

At a nearby harbor, fisherman Qadir Bux sits in a small boat owned by his family for at least two decades as he mends fishing nets. The fisherman hopes to give the wooden vessel a facelift soon.

"It's like looking after something very precious, or even like caring for our own child," he says.

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Culture

Study Shows Marvels of the Roman Empire’s Road Network

A street in Ostia, the ancient seaport of Rome, Italy, at the mouth of the river Tiber, is pictured in this photograph released on September 14, 2026. (Tom Brughmans/Handout via Reuters)
A street in Ostia, the ancient seaport of Rome, Italy, at the mouth of the river Tiber, is pictured in this photograph released on September 14, 2026. (Tom Brughmans/Handout via Reuters)
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Study Shows Marvels of the Roman Empire’s Road Network

A street in Ostia, the ancient seaport of Rome, Italy, at the mouth of the river Tiber, is pictured in this photograph released on September 14, 2026. (Tom Brughmans/Handout via Reuters)
A street in Ostia, the ancient seaport of Rome, Italy, at the mouth of the river Tiber, is pictured in this photograph released on September 14, 2026. (Tom Brughmans/Handout via Reuters)

Augustus, ancient Rome's first emperor, placed a gilded monument called the Milliarium Aureum, or Golden Milestone, in the Roman Forum in 20 BC to mark the symbolic starting point for all roads in the sprawling empire. These roads indeed were the backbone of the world's first continental-scale transportation system.

Now, researchers have conducted a detailed structural analysis of the empire's road network, spanning roughly 190,000 miles (300,000 km) of routes crisscrossing Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.

The study showed the old adage "all roads lead to Rome" was not exactly true, and the empire's later imperial capital Constantinople — present-day Istanbul — was a better fit for that maxim. While the Romans preferred building straight roads, difficult terrain sometimes frustrated that goal, it found.

The researchers also documented a correlation in many regions between the old Roman roads and modern highways.

The Romans, master engineers and builders, constructed roads stretching from the Moroccan and Arabian deserts in the south and east, all the way to Scotland and the Atlantic Ocean in the north and west. These roads were linked ‌to navigable rivers ‌and sea lanes to form a comprehensive transportation web.

"This infrastructure meant that a vast region became ‌more tightly ⁠integrated: it provided ⁠a continent-sized platform for people, animals, pathogens, goods and ideas to spread," said classical archaeologist Tom Brughmans of Aarhus University in Denmark, who helped lead the study published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

"The Roman legions marched over roads to respond to threats, relieve colleagues and colonize new territories. Radical new ideas like early Christianity moved with people over land and sea. But the roads themselves were most used for the frequent commutes between farm and field, or to local markets for selling produce," Brughmans said.

Some roads were very durable, constructed with a combination of materials including crushed stone, lime cement, gravel and paving stones. Traffic consisted mostly of people walking and riding on animals including horses, donkeys, mules and camels, as well as pack ⁠animals and animal-drawn carts and carriages.

Road distances from Rome were measured from the Milliarium Aureum. But ‌was this ancient megalopolis really the center of the network?

"All roads lead to Rome? Not ‌really," Brughmans said. "Rome is centrally located for Mediterranean shipping, but not particularly central in the Roman road system. We found that provincial capitals were exceptionally well ‌located on the roads in their province, facilitating effective provincial administration and tax collection."

Some of these provincial capitals included Ankara in Turkey, London ‌in Britain and Corinth in Greece.

"Rome itself was centrally located on the roads on the Tyrrhenian coast of Italy. But when we consider all movement within the entire Italian peninsula, we were shocked to discover that the most central road actually follows the opposite Adriatic coastline, bypassing Rome altogether," Brughmans said.

A NEW CAPITAL

In the early fourth century AD, the Emperor Constantine moved the capital to Constantinople.

"This new capital was strategically located where Europe and Asia meet, and our ‌research has revealed that it was exceptionally central for empire-wide overland travel — way more so than Rome," Brughmans said. "It's on the Bosporus, and we know of ferries that crossed this strait in ⁠antiquity, effectively connecting European and Asian road ⁠traffic."

Roman engineers used tools and techniques to make roads as straight as possible, with the Via Appia south of Rome a prime example.

"But even the Romans had to bow to nature. We found that Roman roads tend to be straight only if the local topography allows for it, such as in the rather flat areas of Belgium, northern France or the Po Valley in Italy. On the whole, they did not move mountains just to build a road," Brughmans said.

These ancient roads structured interactions among hundreds of millions of people for more than two millennia, given the continued use of many long after the Western Roman Empire fell in 476 AD and the Eastern Roman Empire, also called the Byzantine Empire, succumbed in 1453.

"The persistency of the Roman road network can be demonstrated for many regions, from Britain to the Near East," said Adam Pazout, a postdoctoral fellow at the Autonomous University of Barcelona who helped lead the study. "And these roads in many places served as the main communications throughout the medieval period until development of the railroads in the 19th century and highways in the 20th century."

Many modern highways trace ancient roads.

"A great example is the Via Augusta, which goes from Cadiz in the south of Spain to the Pyrenees. The road passes under a triumphal arch called the Arc de Bera between Tarragona and Barcelona, where you can clearly see it has the same course as the modern N-340 motorway," Brughmans said.

Culture

On Arab Palm Day, AlUla Celebrates Agricultural Heritage Spanning Generations

AlUla is home to more than 4.2 million palm trees covering 16,484 hectares - SPA
AlUla is home to more than 4.2 million palm trees covering 16,484 hectares - SPA
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On Arab Palm Day, AlUla Celebrates Agricultural Heritage Spanning Generations

AlUla is home to more than 4.2 million palm trees covering 16,484 hectares - SPA
AlUla is home to more than 4.2 million palm trees covering 16,484 hectares - SPA

Palm trees are an integral part of AlUla Governorate's agricultural landscape and social and economic history. They remain a prominent feature of the governorate as a major crop and a source of food and income, coinciding with Arab Palm Day, observed annually on September 15.

According to SPA, AlUla is home to more than 4.2 million palm trees covering 16,484 hectares, while the governorate produces around 130,000 tons of dates annually.

These figures reflect the importance of palm trees to the governorate's agricultural sector and the significance of dates within its food production system.

Arab Palm Day highlights the importance of the palm tree in the Arab environment and culture. The designation of Arab Palm Day originated from a proposal submitted by Iraq's Ministry of Agriculture to the Arab League in 1981 to establish an annual day highlighting the palm tree and its importance across Arab countries.

In Saudi Arabia, the palm tree holds a firmly established place in the agricultural, cultural, and economic landscape. AlUla is among the most prominent examples, with its long-standing association with palm cultivation and its oases reflecting an agricultural heritage passed down through generations.

Culture

Huge Van Gogh Collection Reunited for First Time Since 1984

Vincent Van Gogh's "The Potato Eaters." (Getty Images)
Vincent Van Gogh's "The Potato Eaters." (Getty Images)
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Huge Van Gogh Collection Reunited for First Time Since 1984

Vincent Van Gogh's "The Potato Eaters." (Getty Images)
Vincent Van Gogh's "The Potato Eaters." (Getty Images)

A Dutch museum Tuesday put its entire collection of 88 paintings by Vincent Van Gogh on display for the first time since 1984, featuring masterpieces such as "The Potato Eaters".

The Kroller-Muller museum in central Netherlands holds one of the world's largest private collection of paintings by the 19th century Dutch master, but they are rarely displayed together.

"This makes it one of the largest Van Gogh exhibitions of this century," the museum said in a statement, with the display opening to the public from Tuesday until January.

Alongside "The Potato Eaters", the artist's world-famous depiction of peasant life from 1885, the collection includes "Terrace of a Cafe at Night" (1888) and "The Old Tower at Neunen" (1884).

"The exhibition presents all the paintings in relation to the three divine virtues: faith, hope and love," said the museum.

"These three themes play a central role in Van Gogh's life and work. Through his art, he aims to offer hope and comfort to others."

The post-Impressionist painter is among the most celebrated and prolific artists in history, creating around 900 paintings over a short career.

He produced many of his best-known works during his time in France, where he painted masterpieces, including the famous "Sunflowers" series and a number of well-known self-portraits.

The artist died in 1890 at the age of 37, two days after shooting himself in the chest following well-documented mental health struggles.

Most of the works acquired in Tuesday's exhibition, entitled "Van Gogh, All Our Paintings", were acquired by the museum's founder Helene Kroller-Muller between 1908 and 1930.