Good news from Kabul

The survival of the famed Bactrian Hoard was reported at the end of August. There's now a rather more extensive report in the Art Newspaper, which also notes that the destruction at the Kabul Museum -- from warfare, looting, and Taliban iconoclasm -- may have been much less than feared:

The Art Newspaper can reveal that an important part of the Kabul Museum’s collection seems also to have been preserved. The museum, on the outskirts of the capital, has suffered severe looting over the past decade. . .

Although the Taliban initially respected the museum, in February 2001 extremists systematically vandalised its entire contents, battering statues into piles of dust. It was then assumed that Afghanistan’s national museum had lost almost its entire collection.

Last month we spoke with an informed source who revealed that in 1989, with growing security threats, president Dr Najibullah ordered that the finest objects from the museum should be packed for safekeeping. They were put in tin trunks, many of which were moved to the presidential vault, and these probably contained several hundred of the most important items. . .

Our source is optimistic that the museum trunks in the presidential compound are safe, along with the Bactrian gold. Very few people were informed about the 1989 safeguarding operation and until now it has never been spoken about publicly. Our source commented: “The best thing will be for the Bactrian gold and the museum trunks to be left in the presidential compound vault until security conditions improve.”

Posted by David on September 27, 2003 3:41 PM