Archaeologists leave artefacts underground to protect them from the Taliban
At the foot of the cliff where the two Buddhas used to stand 130 kilometres west of Kabul, an archaeological site has been found and parts of a third Buddha, lying down, were discovered in 2008.
The area of the lying Buddha is around half the size of a football pitch. A dozen statues or more lie under tonnes of stone and earth.
“We covered everything up because the ground is private and to prevent looting,” says Zemaryalai Tarzi, the 75-year-old French archaeologist born in Afghanistan who is leading the project.
Like I (almost) always say, artifacts are nearly always better protected where they’ve been sitting.
