Thread by @NafeesRehmanDr

The Kabul Museum exhibits the same resilience as the Afghans - no matter how many times it was burned, bombed & pillaged, every single time it resurrected from the ashes and lived on to tell the story of a rich heritage & history of thousands of years.
#InternationalMuseumDay

With a humble beginning in 1919 during Amanullah's reign, thanks to the foreign archaeological missions in Afghanistan, the collections of the Museums quickly rose in number with the all of its artifacts excavated and collected from within Afghanistan.

#InternationalMuseumDay

Fast forward to 1929, Habibullah Kalakani aka Bacha-e-Saqao led a successful revolt and overthrew Amanullah Khan.He declared Amanullah Khan an idol worshiper, & banned all types of photos and figurative art. He burnt carpets of the palace that had such art & destroyed valuables*

About 9 months later, Shah Wali Khan and Nadir Shah were successful in dethroning Habibullah Kalakani. However, the large Lashkar (armed militia) that had come with them to Kabul also took part in looting the palace and the valuables of the Kabul Museum.

In 1933, the original acquisition registries, dating back more than seventy years, and the detailed object cards, were all destroyed by fire - an indescribable tragedy for any museum.

The Museum collections and the building saw immense extension during the reign of Zahir Shah, under the patronage of UNESCO, and other foreign archaeological missions.

Then came the 40+ years war - the first 9 years with the Soviet, then the civil war and the war against the Taliban.

By 1985 it was clear to the Kabul Govt that the collections that included Bactrian gold and silver and priceless other antiquities needed to be saved.

Babrak, Najib, Rabbani, Masoud all played their part to move as much of the collections to other safe places (Palace, Hotels etc.) as possible. But it wasn't possible to move everything of over two hundred thousand collections.

During the civil war of 1990s, the Museum was pillaged of its collections. According to Nancy Dupree about 70% of the Museum collections were unaccounted during the that time. In 1993, after it was hit by rocket that burying ancient potteries under the debris.

Though we mostly remember the Buddha of Bamiyan that were destroyed by the Talibans and forget about the thousand other statues and figurative art at the Kabul Museum that they destroyed during their tenure.

telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews…

Acc. to Nancy Dupree, about 70% of the museum collections were unaccounted for or stolen during that time. It mostly included the vast gold silver coin collection from the Achaemenids in the 6th B.C through the Islamic period, Greco-Bactrian coins, metal works of Ghaznavids etc.

Most of these artifacts were smuggled to Pakistan and from there it landed in the personal and institute's collections across the world and on the black market- in Switzerland, Germany, Japan, Middle East, and god knows where.

Till this very day, efforts are underway to track these artifacts and bring them back to their original home in Afghanistan, in Kabul Museum.

Here are some relevant news reports this subject.
smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/aft…

And this one.

bbc.com/news/world-asi…

Concluding the thread with the photos of the stone inscription outside the Kabul Museum.

nationalmuseum.af