During the civil war in the 1990s, The Afghanistan National Museum was severely threatened by the conflict surrounding it because it was on the frontline of the war. During the chaos it was looted by thieves. Many of their exhibits were destroyed and 843 pieces from their collection were stolen and sold to the black market. There are many more artifacts that are missing. Some of these pieces included a 4,000 years old Buddha Statue and intricate ivory carvings. A few curators were able to save some of the rare Bactrian gold and other national treasures by hiding it in a safe and keys in an unknown location. Any attempts to open the safe were unsuccessful. Everyone thought the treasures were lost until 2004, when it was announced they were protected the whole time. The British National Museum played a large role in helping repatriate the museum’s collection by returning artifacts found by British border police and by helping to convince collectors to return the objects they had purchased to the museum. One dealer who was very passionate about Afghan culture got involved when the rare Buddha statuee ended up in the hands of a Japanese collector who refused to return it, even after hearing about what happened to the museum and the sculpture’s cultural significance to Afghanistan. This dealer, who chose to remain anonymous, stepped in and spent over a hundreds of thousands of pounds to buy the work and return it the the National Museum of Afghanistan. According to Afghanistan’s deputy cultural minister 9,000 looted artifacts have been retuned to the country, the national museum, and many other museums. I think its very interesting how the museum and art world decided to band together save and repatriate as much of these artifacts as possible once they saw what happened to the National Museum of Afghanistan. Even today artifacts are still being found and returned, almost 25 years after the civil wars and initial thefts. These countries are also raising funds and giving donations to help the National Museum of Afghanistan build a new building to house their collections. It truly became an international effort to restore Afghanistan’s and the world’s cultural history.
Sources:
BBC News, (2012). Looted Afghan artefacts returned. [online] BBC News. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-19134330 [Accessed 29 Oct. 2014].
Graham-Harrison, E. (2012). Treasures returned to Afghan museum. [online] the Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/aug/05/artefacts-returned-afghan-museum [Accessed 29 Oct. 2014].
Kluijver, R. (2013). How the collection of the National Museum of Afghanistan survived the civil war and the looting, 1992-2001. [online] Robertk.asia. Available at: http://robertk.asia/2013/09/how-the-collection-of-the-national-museum-of-afghanistan-survived-the-civil-war-and-the-looting-1992-2001/ [Accessed 29 Oct. 2014].
Curating With Kelsey 