BAMIYAN, Afghanistan — They stand like missing hearts carved out of the mountain’s chest, abandoned chambers where ancient wonders of the world once gazed placidly.
It has been nearly 10 years since the Taliban destroyed Bamiyan’s towering Buddhas.
With Afghanistan convulsed again by war, rebuilding isn’t even on the agenda.
No one knows how much it would cost to restore the work of craftsmen who have been dead for more than 1,500 years, and “nobody’s ready to pay,” said Hamza Youssefi of Afghanistan’s Historical Monuments Department.
Youssefi’s office is tacked with posters explaining what used to be here. Down a dim hallway, locked cabinets contain recovered bits of statue.
The female Buddha was 118 feet tall. The male figure was 174 feet.
The Taliban committed atrocities, both human and cultural, against Bamiyan’s ethnic Hazaras. Ignoring global pleas, it destroyed the Buddhas in March 2001, first trying mortar and artillery, then succeeding with dynamite, claiming them to be an affront to conservative Islamic faith. Some say the Taliban hoped to find gold in the statues’ bellies.
The Buddhas of Bamiyan haven’t been forgotten. Under the auspices of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, European and Japanese archaeologists have stabilized the cliff face, which was damaged in the explosion; surveyed the honeycomb of caves; and preserved pieces of the original statues.
They have discovered previously unknown oil paintings in the complex and a stupa, or Buddhist shrine, at the base of the cliff, said Habiba Surabi, governor of Bamiyan province.
Large fragments are tightly wrapped in yellow plastic at the mountain’s base.
Scaffolding fills the main chamber, like the skeleton of a Buddha. But with Afghanistan’s war and poverty, finishing the work isn’t a job for today.
Unlit lights are strung across the scaffolding. In the Dari language, they spell out “Peace.”
Numbers
1,500 years old The age of the older statue
118 feet Height of the female Buddha
174 feet Height of the male Buddha
More than 2,750 Renderings of living things, including the Buddhas and other historic artifacts, destroyed because, according to the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam, they were idols that offended God
