Experts debate future of Buddhas dynamited by Taliban
( 2002-10-10 10:56 ) (7 )

For over 1,600 years, from the twilight of imperial Rome through the ravages of Genghis Khan, the giant Buddhas of Bamiyan towered above the fabled Silk Road through Afghanistan that linked the ancient East and West.

A thousand years back, when they were already 600 years old, the faces of the statues were hacked off on the orders of a Muslim zealot. But the figures themselves stood until March last year, when Mullah Omar, leader of Afghanistan's former Taliban regime, finished them off with dynamite.

The two colossal statues laboriously carved from a pink sandstone cliff overlooking the town of Bamiyan were blasted from their massive niches and reduced to piles of dust and rubble in an act that shocked the world and woke it up to the extent of the Taliban's religious intolerance.

It looked to be a final devastating blow to central Afghanistan's Hazara tribe, who suffered some of the worst Taliban atrocities and saw Bamiyan, their capital, reduced to pitiful ruin during its rule.

But with the Taliban now overthrown, experts from all over the world are working with the new government, under the auspices of the UN cultural organisation, UNESCO, to see what can be done to save what is left of the Buddhas.

Technology exists to completely rebuild the 55 metre and 38 metre (125 and 180 foot) statues, but a debate is raging as to how far such work should go.

At present, only the outlines of the statues remain along with parts of the arms attached to the cliff wall. And even those fragments are in danger.

Among the most controversial proposals has been from an Afghan-American artist, Haider Zad, who suggested building new statues in reinforced concrete, an idea that has horrified UNESCO experts and would likely provoke considerable anger among Afghanistan's legions of Islamic conservatives.

Accompanying a team of Japanese and European experts to inspect the remnants last week, UNESCO Kabul's senior cultural specialist Jim Williams said the government and international donors had agreed the priority should be to consolidate and protect the remains.

He said UNESCO's mandate did not allow for the building of new statues.

RECONSTRUCTION A POSSIBILITY

Michael Petzet, president of the International Council for Monuments and Sites, a private NGO that is a consultant to UNESCO, said he and other experts believed there were enough large fragments remaining for a successful reconstruction of the Buddhas through a process known as anastylosis.

"We were astonished, because we had heard from the news and from colleagues that there was nothing but dust left. And here you have many big fragments," he said, pointing to a big boulder that was part of the smaller Buddha's shoulder.

"It's like any archaeological site, when columns fall down, you have part of it and you sort of build it up again."

He said the Afghan government was keen to rebuild the statues.

"Of course, we are only interested in a very scientific professional work and not in the idea of a new Buddha in concrete or gold. These are horrible ideas that would destroy what is left," he said.

The governor of Bamiyan, Mohammad Rahim Ali Yar, said the local government was eager to see the statues rebuilt, both because they represented part of Afghanistan's cultural heritage and because they would bring much needed tourism revenue to the desperately poor province.

Butul Ahad Abacy, the engineer in charge of historic monuments at the ministry of information and culture, said it could be dangerous to build new statues.

"We are living in an Islamic country and there are some very radical Islamists living here. If we were to build new statues banned by Islam they might react very strongly to that.

"According to the rules on the preservation of monuments, if something is destroyed, we preserve what is left. I don't think that would provoke the same outrage as building a new idol. It would be just preserving our historical heritage."

DIFFICULT AND URGENT TASK

Protection of the remains is an urgent, difficult and dangerous task, as the Buddhas were carved from a soft and crumbling stone that once formed part of a prehistoric seabed.

Deep cracks in the niches have been widened by the explosions and what remains of the statues is in danger of crashing down if left exposed during the coming winter.

Even vibration caused by US special forces helicopters overflying Bamiyan has caused some rock falls from the niches.

"The situation is quite delicate, very fragile really at this moment," said Claudio Margottini, an expert on rock mechanics from the University of Modena in Italy, advising the UNESCO team.

"It's a really dangerous situation, so we hope it's possible to do something. Generally winter here is very severe and in a structure like this, ice can enlarge the fractures and may cause collapse."

The experts are considering structures to protect the niches and emergency work to shore up the fractures.

They are also looking at ways to protect what remains of Buddhist wall paintings dating from the 5th to 7th centuries that decorated many of the hundreds of cave-like monks' cells carved into the cliffs around the statues.

Some were defaced by the Taliban while others have been damaged by fires lit by local people who have traditionally wintered in the caves, or refugees who took shelter there when their houses have been destroyed in fighting.

Some paintings have also been stolen for sale to overseas collectors, including Japan, said Kosaku Maeda of the University of Wako in Tokyo. Maeda, on his first trip to Bamiyan since 1978 estimated that 80 percent of the paintings that existed then had now disappeared.

"We were shocked to see this," he said. "Almost all the paintings are covered with dust and smoky film. If they are cleaned we may find some very important paintings," he said.

Maeda said the experts, who will submit a funding proposal to the Japanese government, want to build a workshop at Bamiyan to store and restore the paintings, which would be attached to a site museum.