The treasures of Turquoise Mountain

Rory Stewart’s Turquoise Mountain Foundation is supported by Aga Khan IV and Aga Khan Trust for Culture. See previous postings.

Canadian-funded plan aims at breathing new life into ancient culture

Olivia Ward
FOREIGN AFFAIRS REPORTER

In Afghanistan, ragged gashes cut through the cliffs of Bamiyan, where giant Buddha statues that symbolized an age of culture and tolerance once towered.

The Taliban’s bombing of the 5th-century Buddhas outraged the world and became an image of the annihilation of Afghanistan’s past, as though the claws of war had reached back in time to shred the very identity of its people.

But deliberate destruction accounts for only a fraction of the losses of Afghanistan’s cultural treasures. Greed, opportunism and dire poverty have propelled armies of looters through the country’s museums and archaeological sites, stripping away thousands of years of cultural history.

Complete at the source

http://www.turquoisemountainarts.af

http://www.turquoisemountain.org