More than 22,000 treasures from the Kabul Museum in Afghanistan, long thought to have been lost in the war against the Soviet Union and the subsequent cultural purge by the Taliban, have been located in bank vaults and other safe places where they were hidden by museum officials.
The priceless Bactrian gold collection, precious ivories, bronze statues and other artifacts of 5,000 years of history on the Orient's Silk Road were preserved despite the devastation engulfing the country, archeologists said Wednesday.
The discovery of the Bactrian gold was announced this summer, but a just-completed inventory revealed that virtually all of the museum's most precious items are intact, Oxford University archeologist Fredrik T. Hiebert said.
During the resistance against the Soviets, a team of curators in the early 1980s boxed up the most valuable pieces in the museum's collection, stashing them in various vaults around Kabul, the Afghan capital. The curators -- most of whose names are unknown -- used small safes, tin boxes, steel containers and anything else they could find.
They then went "dead quiet," British archeologist Carla Grissman said, keeping their knowledge to themselves even as rumors circulated about the destruction and looting of the museum's contents.
They kept their secrets for a quarter of a century.
"These are the real heroes of this story," said Hiebert, leader of the team that has been inventorying the newly rediscovered artifacts.
Because the once-missing items come from so many different places along the Silk Road, he added, the find "has a significance well beyond Afghanistan and Central Asia. It's of world importance."
Now that the artifacts are reinventoried, they have been packed up and stored in a once-again secret location until the government can find a new home for them.
The Kabul Museum has been restored, but security there is not sufficient to protect the treasures.
Curators hope to build a state-of-the-art museum in the center of the capital, but no one is sure where the money will come from.
In the meantime, the Afghan Ministry of Culture may organize an international tour for the collection in an effort to reestablish the country's historical bona fides.
The Kabul Museum was a small facility housed in a 1920s-era federal building about 30 minutes from the city center.
Although it was small, Hiebert noted, "it is said that every piece [it had] was a masterpiece."
