After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, the country’s archeological sites face a bleak future, even if the ultimate Islamist group does not purposefully plunder and destroy them, LiveScience reports. Antennas.
According to some reports coming from the country, the Taliban are already hunting for one of Afghanistan’s most famous cultural heritage sites – the Bactrian Treasure (also known as the Bactrian Gold).
It is a collection of over 20,000 artifacts, most of which are gold. The items were found in 2,000-year-old graves in Tilia Tepe in 1978. The treasure was stored in the National Museum of Afghanistan and exhibited in the presidential palace. However, according to new information, it is not known where he is at the moment.
Other archeological sites that could be threatened by the Taliban are Mes Ainak, a Buddhist city that flourished about 1,600 years ago. The village was located on the Silk Road and was a place for trade and worship. There are many Buddhist monasteries, and other important Buddhist artifacts have been discovered.
During their previous rule between 1996 and 2001, the Taliban destroyed many of the Buddhist artifacts, including two massive 6th-century statues known as the Bamiyan Buddhas, which were carved into the rocks. They used rockets, dynamite, etc. to shoot down the statues.
Mess Ainac’s future looks particularly bleak. According to media sources, all the equipment used in the excavations, as well as for the conservation of what was found, is no longer available. The Taliban were on the scene, the reasons are unknown.
“The situation with the protection of cultural heritage is not good. Right now, no one cares about protecting the monuments and excavations, “said Hair Mohammed Hayrzada, the archaeologist who led the excavations at Mess Ainak. “All archeological sites in Afghanistan are at risk,” he said.
He added that “there is no monitoring, no maintenance, no security, no care. All the departments involved in this activity are closed in all the provinces, there is no money, no equipment, etc. ”The archaeologist was recently forced to emigrate to France to flee the Taliban.
Julio Bendezou-Sarmiento, who headed the French archeological mission in Afghanistan, explained that he had learned that the Taliban had visited Mess Ainac, but their purpose remained unclear. He added that there were plans to organize in 2022 in France an exhibition of artifacts from various places in Afghanistan, but the conquest of Kabul thwarted these intentions.
So far, there is no evidence of deliberate and deliberate destruction or looting of archeological sites by the Taliban. The group’s leadership even came out with a statement that they would protect the cultural heritage. How they will actually work, however, cannot be predicted.
Together with his team, Jill Stein, a professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies at the University of Chicago, who heads the Afghanistan Heritage Mapping Partnership, uses satellite imagery and observes thousands of archeological sites in Afghanistan.
According to his estimates, they have mapped the location of 25,000 archeological sites in the Asian country so far. So far, he has personally found no evidence that the Taliban support the looting of archeological sites.
Islamist extremists have recently imposed control of Kabul and the northern parts of the country, but they have ruled territories in southern Afghanistan for years. Stein notes that there has not been as much looting in the areas under their control over the years as there has been in Islamic State-controlled areas in Syria and Iraq.
But he added that even earlier, his team had encountered many cases in which opium was cultivated on valuable archeological sites. “The Taliban make a lot of money from opium, so they don’t plunder valuable archeological sites,” he explained.
But most archeological sites are located in the northern parts of the country. So far, some of them have been injured in battle, but there are no signs of deliberate demolition or looting.
“Even if the Taliban leaders in Kabul decide to preserve the cultural heritage, it is not known how the group’s representatives will act in other parts of the country,” Stein recalled.
The experts are leaving the country, and those who remain are in constant fear for their lives.
The future of Afghanistan’s cultural heritage is unclear, but fears it will not be good.
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