|
Mysterious afghans saved treasure through war Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/16220824.htm"saved by a mysterious group of Afghans who patiently kept them hidden"
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/16220824.htm
Posted on Tue, Dec. 12, 2006
Rescued Afghan treasure on display
By ANGELA DOLAND
The Associated Press
PARIS - The mystery baffled archaeologists for more than two decades. What happened to 22,000 pieces of gold -- jewel-encrusted crowns, daggers and baubles from an ancient burial mound -- that had apparently vanished from Afghanistan in the 1980s?
With the country mired in wars and general chaos, rumors swirled. Had the 2,000-year-old gold treasure trove been spirited away from the Afghan National Museum to Russia, or sold on the black market, or melted down? Many assumed it was gone forever.
This tale, though, has a happy ending.
The Bactrian gold, as it is known, went on display this month at Paris' Guimet Museum. The treasure, and a host of other masterpieces, had been saved by a mysterious group of Afghans who patiently kept them hidden underground at great personal risk.
Members of the group were known as the key holders, because they held the keys to the basement vault on the grounds of the presidential palace where the treasures were hidden, archaeologists and curators said.
"Over the last 20 to 25 years, during food shortages and money crises, this handful of people ...could have sold these collections instead of going hungry, but they never once sacrificed their own cultural heritage," said Fredrik Hiebert, an archaeologist with the National Geographic Society.
The key holders are believed to have hidden the treasures sometime after the 1979 Soviet invasion.
The Taliban are believed to have tortured a security guard who refused to give up the treasure's secrets, said Christian Manhart, a specialist on Afghanistan with United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The regime also purportedly tried to crack the lock with a diamond drill bit, he said.
Yet stories about the treasure must be taken with caution. "Every time you ask, you hear a different story," Manhart said.
The identity of the key holders is still not public knowledge, and it is not even clear how many there were. Manhart believes there may have been only one, though legend says otherwise.
The mystery of the treasures' whereabouts began unraveling in 2003, when President Hamid Karzai announced that a few boxes from the National Museum had been found in a vault, along with hidden bank reserves of gold bars. Hiebert was asked to inventory the pieces.
He was in for a huge surprise.
"We found glass, bronze, wonderful ivory," Hiebert said. "The boxes were not very well labeled, and every time we opened one, nobody knew what was going to come out of it. There were gasps and sighs, and it was very emotional."
The exhibit showcases Afghanistan's rich history and its place as a crossroads on the Silk Road, where it took in artistic influences from Greek, Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern cultures. The exhibit is expected to go on tour, and Hiebert said officials are negotiating to bring it to the United States. So far, security in Afghanistan is not tight enough to take it to Kabul's museum.
© 2006 Star-Telegram and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
|
|
