Remains of 'History' Photo

Photographer’s Note

As for the history of civilizations in Afghanistan, there is almost nothing to write home.
The Bamiyan Valley civilization dating back two millenia, however, is the most significant of its kind; not only in the country but in the whole region. These mini-buddhas were carved out of the mountain face along the two collossal ones by the ancient buddhist monks.
While mothernature in form of rain and erosion has itself facilitated the decay of these precious artworks, in 2001 the fundamentalist-Islamic Taliban government blasted off these statues blasting their existence as Un-Islamic. Even smaller ones such as this 9-meters one weren't spared. They are gone... gone for good!

If you ever happen to visit Afghanistan, Bamian and its ancient landmarks (or rather their ruins) are a must see place.

Buin, wanderlust, tobourge, colibri, ariya, tande, pboehringer has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

Buin (38600) 2006-11-22 5:22

Hallo Hadi!
Yes, it's a tragedy what happened here and - as so often - the whole world looked the other way ... thank you for showing this!
Greetings from Germany, and have a good day!
Frank

nex (2686) 2006-11-22 6:27

Yes this is a good example of the situation which happens when uneducated fanatics are empowered to do anything what they want to do with the people, culture and last but not least with the historical heritage...
Greetings from Slovakia

tobourge (925) 2006-11-22 6:30

Hello Hadi,

Good idea to post this picture. The question now is not to comment on what happened - as you said it is gone for good - but to make sure this kind of things don't happen again.

It's a big loss for the country.

Thanks

Tony

ariya (0) 2006-11-22 21:41

Hi,
Oh, so sad. So very, very sad.

Regards,
Salim

tande (92) 2007-01-18 21:20

When I saw the Buddas exploding I felt horrible, it was so sad. In fact not long ago I was talking with my girlfriend about them and if the new rule would do anything to rebuild them. Now thanks to TE I can see what is left of them, sad, very sad.

pboehringer (770) 2007-03-13 10:46

A good documentation of a sad moment of history, Hadi. The different layers of history are well portraited - the hole in which once the Buddha was located and now the emptiness due to its bombing ...
Not knowing the place better than form your picture and all the images that the world saw at TV I would say that it would have been nice to have some vegetation or anything else in the foreground to give some DOF or a person to give some reference of size. Just a humble suggestion.
Regards, Peter