Bhera

Bhera (Punjabi: بھیرا; Urdu: بھیرہ) is a city and tehsil of Sargodha District, Punjab province of Pakistan. The city is known for wood-carved items, textiles (such as quilts and khussas), and certain desserts (such as pheonian and pateesa).

The city is made up of the Old Town and the surrounding newer development. The Old Town is surrounded by tall walls with eight gates, and is divided up into mohallas, or neighborhoods; historically, different castes lived in different mohallas. Bhera was an important trading outpost on the road to Kabul, and boasted of a taksal (mint) during the rule of Ranjit Singh. The city was known for its knife and cutlery craftsmen, who made fighting daggers (Pesh-kabz) as well as hunting knives and table cutlery, often fitted with handles of serpentine (false jade) or horn.[4] Sir Robert Baden-Powell described the process by which craftsmen manufactured gem-quality serpentine aka false jade from ores obtained from Afghanistan: "The sang-i-yesham (ore) is cut by means of an iron saw, and water mixed with red sand and pounded (with) kurand (corundum). It is polished by application to the san (polishing wheel), wetted with water only, then by being kept wet with water, and rubbed with a piece of wati (smooth pottery fragment), and lastly by rubbing very finely pounded burnt sang-i-yesham on it. This last process must be done very thoroughly.