Ancient Treasures by Brian Haughton

Author:Brian Haughton
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Career Press
Published: 2013-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

Lost Treasures of Afghanistan

The 2,000-year-old Bactrian Gold is one of the largest hoards of gold ever discovered, and the story behind its loss and rediscovery is as extraordinary as the treasure itself. The Bactrian Gold, a cache of gold jewelry, ornaments, and coins from northern Afghanistan, was excavated in the late 1970s, only to go missing during the chaos caused by the foreign occupation and civil war that were to grip the country for the next two and a half decades or so. During this tumultuous period the National Museum of Afghanistan was looted several times, resulting in a loss of 70 percent of the estimated 100,000 objects on display. Had the same fate overtaken the Bactrian Gold? Or had it been taken to Moscow by the Soviets, or smuggled out to Europe or the United States, or—worst of all—melted down? It seemed impossible that such important and priceless artifacts could vanish without trace. During the 1990s and up until the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the Taliban had made repeated attempts to recover the treasure, but had been unsuccessful. Then in June 2004, an announcement was made that a number of supposedly lost treasures of Afghanistan had been recovered, and the astonishing story behind the Bactrian Gold was revealed to the world.

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