Taliban-Backed Project Seeks to Save Afghanistan’s Ancient Buddhist City from Copper Mining

An 18-month-long conservation project to protect a 2,000-year-old Buddhist city is being backed by the Taliban, according to the Art Newspaper.

The Afghan heritage site Mes Aynak is currently at risk of being destroyed due to a delayed mining project. The site, just 25 miles southeast of Kabul, is believed to contain the second largest untapped copper mine in the world. The deposits are estimated to be worth $100 billion.

In 2008, Afghanistan’s former government, led by then-president Hamid Karza, signed a lucrative contract with a Chinese company to extract the copper through an open-pit mine in 2008, however, the project was delayed to allow for research and the relocation of any valuable artifacts.

While the new government has indicated that it aims to preserve the site’s remains, there are concerns that the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan has already resulted in long-term damage to heritage sites. The Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) has recently started to repair temporary structures erected to protect more than 50 sites at Mes Aynak, as part of a $1 million project funded by the Swiss foundation Aliph, a global fund focused on the protection and rehabilitation of cultural heritage in areas of conflict. These efforts include the protection of such structures as stupas, statues, wall and floor paintings. Additionally, the project plans to create a conservation plan for the remains and the relocation of several artifacts to a nearby site.

Not only is there a race against time with the pending mining project, but artifacts that were uncovered over the last 15 years are also at risk of decay.

The project is expected to provide employment for 350 people in Afghanistan including laborers, architects, engineers, archaeologists, and technical staff.

In the past, the Taliban has actively destroyed Afghani cultural heritage including, perhaps most famously, the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in 2001.