Destructive Frenzy in Afghanistan - Archaeology Magazine Archive


Destructive Frenzy in Afghanistan	March 2, 2001

Rumors began to slip out of the ravaged Afghan capital of Kabul a few months ago: pre-Islamic artifacts were being systematically destroyed by the country's fundamentalist Taliban regime. On February 12, these rumors were confirmed in a BBC report stating that Taliban representatives, invoking the Islamic prohibition against the depiction of living things, had destroyed over a dozen ancient statues in the National Museum in Kabul. Two weeks later, on February 26, supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar announced that all pre-Islamic statues in the Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan were to be destroyed. Among the images the Taliban said it would destroy are two colossal standing Buddha statues carved into a mountainside at Bamiyan. (Click here for comments by Taliban officials reported in the press.)

Taliban Information and Culture Minister Mullah Qadradullah Jamal was quoted by the Afghan Islamic Press news service as saying statues had been destroyed at museums in Kabul, Ghazni, Herat, and at Farm Hadda near Jalalabad. The extent of the destruction is difficult to determine but there is no reason to be hopeful. The fate of the Bamiyan Buddhas is unknown. One report says that they were to be blown up following Friday prayers today. Reactions from around the world are uniformly outraged and saddened (see below). To them we can only add our own condemnation of the destruction of this priceless heritage. ARCHAEOLOGY's May/June issue will follow up on these events.--The Editors