Sahiwal
— — the slow brown country of the Bari Doab.
Not only on a wall.
“A canal-country city in central Punjab, between Lahore and Multan, the land flat to the horizon and the cotton fields running to the rail line. Sahiwal was called Montgomery under the British and took its present name in 1966. The Sahiwal breed of red-brown cattle, one of the great dairy breeds of South Asia, carries the city's name across the continent. In the cooler months the colour off the fields at dusk goes the soft red of brick kiln smoke and worn brick, and the call to prayer carries a long way over the canal.
Sahiwal, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Sahiwal sits in the central Punjab plain, on the Lower Bari Doab Canal between the Ravi and Sutlej rivers, roughly 180 kilometres southwest of Lahore on the road and rail line to Multan. The city was founded as a colonial-era settlement and named Montgomery after Sir Robert Montgomery, lieutenant-governor of the Punjab. It was renamed Sahiwal in 1966. The district is one of the more productive farming districts in the country, anchored by cotton, wheat and sugarcane.
About 35 kilometres west of the city lie the ruins of Harappa, one of the principal urban centres of the Indus Valley civilisation, occupied from roughly 2600 to 1900 BCE. The brick mounds, the granary platforms and the cemetery have been excavated since the 1920s, and a small site museum holds finds in situ. The civic core of Sahiwal itself carries the rectilinear British cantonment grid, with the railway station, the district courts and the old Civil Lines aligned to it.
The climate is hot semi-arid, with three real seasons rather than four. Summers from May through August are very hot, with daytime highs routinely above 40°C ahead of the monsoon, which arrives in July and August with most of the year's rain. The cool season from November through February is the kind weather, with mild days and cold mornings, and a low mist sometimes settles over the canal before sunrise. Spring and autumn are short and the fields turn quickly.