The Bamiyan valley is one of the great archaeological landscapes of the Silk Road. The empty niches of the Buddhas of Bamiyan — destroyed in 2001 — still dominate the cliffs, surrounded by hundreds of cave dwellings and meditation cells used by Buddhist monks from the 4th century onwards. Above the town, Shahr-e-Gholghola, the "City of Screams," is the ruined Ghorid citadel that Genghis Khan reduced in 1221. West of the town, the six turquoise lakes of Band-e Amir make up Afghanistan's first national park.