Afghan gold: Just how the country's heritage was rescued

A miraculous tale of human ingenuity and bravery lies behind an exhibition of treasures from Afghanistan that opens at the British Museum this week.

In 17 a long time of war after the 1989 Soviet withdrawal, and five a long time of Taliban rule, the majority of the Afghan countrywide museum's riches were looted and a few were deliberately destroyed.

However the most valuable items survived, in a very vault deep beneath the presidential palace, thanks to five males - amongst them museum director Omar Khan Massoudi.

"He held his nerve through the Taliban's rule of Afghanistan and shown tremendous courage in not submitting to their demands and threats to reveal its area," says British Afghan expert and member of parliament Rory Stewart.

"It was an act of extraordinary courage and he performed a fantastic company to his region."

The Kabul countrywide museum is found a couple of kilometres south from the cash, in a location that repeatedly altered palms as mujahideen militias vied for affect from the early 1990s.

Each time it absolutely was used, the museum was looted again. With the approximated a hundred,000 object on display in 1979, some 70% had gone through the mid-1990s.

A rocket destroyed a 4th Century wall painting in 1993. Priceless goods, some looted to purchase, altered palms about the international artwork market place. Other people were buried in rubble or burned as firewood.

However the legendary Bactrian gold - which specialists feared had been stolen and melted down - had the truth is been packed up, together with numerous key objects from the assortment, and moved to a Central Financial institution vault from the Presidential Palace in 1989.

Mr Massoudi was one of five males who had keys for the vault. All five keys were needed to open it - and each and every from the males risked their lives to not hand them above for the militants.

The holders from the keys held their areas top secret - if a key holder died, it absolutely was agreed, the main element would be passed on for the keeper's eldest kid.

In that way, the priceless artefacts were preserved.

"Mr Massoudi and his employees are without doubt unsung heroes," says exhibition task curator Constance Wyndham.

"Without his initiative its very not likely this great assortment would be around nowadays."

Ms Wyndham says the Soviet-backed President Mohammad Najibullah, whose government fell in 1992, also played a position, even though it remains unclear precisely how closely he was involved.

"All that we do know is the choice was produced by a committee and President Najibullah ordered the objects to be moved for the presidential palace," she stated.

Right after the ingenuity from the rescue arrived the bravery that was required to maintain the hoard risk-free.

Mr Massoudi and his employees have from the intervening a long time remained modest - and relatively reticent - about their achievement.

But his feedback from the museum's guidebook give some idea from the hazards of keeping the treasure risk-free from "terror, violence, civil war and the Taliban".

Despite being subjected to several threats through the Taliban - usually at gunpoint - people who knew from the top secret area gave nothing at all absent.

It absolutely was not until eventually 2003 that the shop of 22,000 gold and glass objects were uncovered.

"Today together with the grace of Allah Almighty, we've succeeded in seeing the central treasure of Afghanistan," President Hamid Karzai declared.