National Museum of Afghanistan

Once the finest archaeological collection between Istanbul and Delhi, the Kabul Museum was looted and burned during the civil war of the 1990s and again deliberately attacked by the Taliban in 2001, who smashed dozens of pre-Islamic statues with hammers. The building was rebuilt in the 2000s and a remarkable number of objects were either recovered, hidden, or pieced back together — Gandharan Buddha heads, Hellenistic ivories from Begram, Bronze Age bowls from Mundigak, and the Bactrian Gold when it is on display.

It is a slow visit, partly because the surviving collection is genuinely world-class and partly because the museum's modern history is itself the story. The motto carved at the entrance — "A nation stays alive when its culture stays alive" — was put there during the 2004 reopening.

things to do museum historic
A story
When the civil war reached Kabul in 1992, museum staff secretly moved the most valuable objects — including the famous Bactrian Gold, a hoard of 20,000 pieces from a nomadic burial — into the vaults of the central bank. The hoard stayed hidden through the Taliban years; the world assumed it was lost. It was rediscovered intact in 2003 and has been touring the world's museums ever since.

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