Afghanistan And Its Sacred Treasures

Exiled Afghan Art

Dec. 5, 2002 -- More than 110 works of Afghan art are on view at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. The show, entitled Afghanistan: a Timeless History, is the largest show of Afghan art in the United States in 35 years. But as David D'Arcy reports, it may be a long time before the exhibits return home to Kabul, Afghanistan's capital. NPR - David D'Arcy's report.

beautiful!

I kinda liked the Scared Treasures.. Just thinking about the Taliban destroying the Budhas. Didn't we blue drape the bosom of a statue?

Joanne - I saw a few pieces in the Philadelphia Museum and at the Met in New York when I was still getting around. Viewing all these things has got to be humbling. Here we are bumbling around, and all those years ago artists were so dedicated to creating beautiful and powerful works. They laasted, while so many other things did not.

Isn't that the truth mama, I worry more about what undiscovered knowledge will be destroyed in the Middle East in this war. The countries we love to hate - Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, they are Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, Arabia before WWI. There are many Tells that have not been excavated yet I worry our Smart Bombs will destroy our own history.

You are so lucky to have seen these treasure in person. All I have is my Smithsonian magazine. Oh well, I was on the East Coast but came back here. Just cannot take that weather .

Virtually all of Iraq is an archaeological site

And I shiver at what this administration lacks. There is absolutely no idea, no cultural learning (nor desire for it), no reading - how could they be expected to care that it was once Mesopotamia? I should think a truly religious person........but this is lip service, after all. And when I read about what they're digging up in China!

Growing up in Philadelphia was great. A lot of jokes are made about the city - but the main library, on the same avenue as the Art Museum, Rodin musuem, is such a marvelous building. And the Philadelphia Museum of Art, besides being modeled on the Parthenon, always had major exhibits, because it is a major museum. Today, my older daughter lives within walking distance of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and has done work for the Brooklyn Museum. No wonder we're democrats!

Just love Philly and have been to the PMA and the Rodin museum many times. Love walking through the Gates of Hell. It would be wonderful if all cities would adopt the art policy of putting wonderful sculpture across there cities it makes the drive through downtown worth the traffic.

The Rodin Museum

"There are so many archaeological sites in Iraq that it's like a dart game -- wherever you throw a dart, you'll hit a site," says Samuel Paley, an ancient Near East specialist and professor of classics at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. "Frankly, at this point, wherever the war's soldiers move, they will be doing damage to archaeological terrain."

Iraq, with its archaeological sites and its world-class museums, possesses objects that provide some of the very first evidence of civilization -- including tablets on which writing was first recorded some 5,500 years ago. These tablets, documenting everything from commodities transfers to recipes, serve as a priceless mirror on the Sumerian, Akkadian and Babylonian empires.

"These written records give us a wonderful picture of the past that we couldn't acquire any other way," says Frank Hole, professor of anthropology at Yale University. "They constitute a treasure trove of history just lying in the ground, waiting to be excavated."

Several rich archaeological sites, such as at Tell al-Lahm near Ur, at Assur and at Nasiriya, could be especially vulnerable to war-related damage. Looting of Iraq's museums of irreplaceable objects also looms as a very real possibility.

"And remember that south of Baghdad, near today's village of Babylon, you'll find the remains of the ancient sites of the hanging gardens of Babylon and the remains of [Babylonian king] Nebuchadnezzar's palace," says Timothy Potts, director of the Kimbell Art Museum and a specialist in the art and archaeology of ancient Iraq. "I mean, if there is fighting in and around that, it would be unthinkably devastating."

Link to the full article:In the line of fire - Iraq's archaeological treasures

It makes me want to cry. The cradle of civilization being blasted in such an uncivilized manner. The birthplace of agriculture, the fertile crescent, the tigres and euphrates. Humankind's first fertility godesses rolling in their resting places under the sand.