Special Report: Afghan Archaeology on the Road to Recovery

Abstract

The world reacted swiftly to the terrible news of the destruction of the Great Buddha of Bamiyan, when Taliban forces dynamited the colossal statue in 2001. This, however, was just a part of the Taliban's strategy. Excavations that had unearthed Persian and Hellenistic strata uncovered at Bagram (ancient Kapissa) were bulldozed into the ground and destroyed. The once admirable Afghan National Museum in Kabul was looted and the building destroyed. Everywhere the Taliban destroyed anything that told a story about Afghanistan's cultural and historical heritage that predated their own sectarian version of history. Seventy years of hard work and research have been lost through the chaos and anarchy of war. The central government had become so weak that it was not in a position to protect any public or state properties. In the early 1990s, over sixty thousand citizens of Kabul died in the fighting, and nearly seventy percent of the objects of the National Museum were plundered.