01.03.2011
It is precisely ten years since the destruction of the statues of Buddha at Bamiyan in Afghanistan by the Taleban regime. With plans to rebuild the two statues having been shelved, their vestiges remain as a rallying point to preserve cultural heritage...and to remember the many other instances of destruction and pillage.
Irina Bokova, the Director-General of UNESCO (UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) considers that the vestiges of the two enormous statues of Buddha at Bamiyan can serve as a focal point for humankind to remember our common cultural heritage and to ensure that we protect it.
"The two monumental statues had stood for one and a half millennia as proud testimonies to the greatness of our shared humanity. They were destroyed in the context of the conflict devastating Afghanistan and to undermine the power of culture as a cohesive force for the Afghan people," she stated at her Headquarters in Paris.
In July 1999, issuing a decree to protect the statues, Taleban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar stated: "The government considers the Bamiyan statues as an example of a potential major source of income for Afghanistan from international visitors. The Taliban states that Bamiyan shall not be destroyed but protected."
However, as the Taleban radicalised their position against imagery and in favour of more and more strict versions of their own interpretation of Sharia law, mixed up with the imposition of Pashtun lore, while targeting the non-Pashtun or less Islamist sections of Afghan society, calls were made by religious leaders to destroy the statues because the worship of images is against Islam. This was despite the fact that in his ruling two years before, Mullah Omar had stated that there was no longer a community of Buddhists in Afghanistan who worship the statues.
It was also despite the fact that ambassadors from the 54 states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference had declared unilaterally in favour of protecting them.
It took the Taleban weeks of determination to destroy them. After strafing the giant structures with anti-aircraft guns and artillery for several days, they were mined. When that failed to work, rockets were fired at them and then finally, they sent teams of sappers to insert explosives into the structures.
Today only the niches where the statues once stood remain. UNESCO does not consider the option to rebuild them worthwhile (they were carved into the cliff face), yet there are still Buddhist monastic sanctuaries, as well as fortified Islamic buildings, at the site which is witness to 13 centuries of Buddhist art showing various eastern and western cultural influences.
However, this was not the only outrage against our collective cultural heritage. Irina Bokova explains, "Since then we have witnessed other instances where cultural heritage has fallen prey to conflict, political turmoil and misappropriation".
The main issues at stake are the need to raise awareness and fight against attacks on cultural properties through looting, smuggling and illicit trade and more importantly, the promotion of tolerance and cultural rapprochement. This will be the central theme of the Forum at UNESCO's HQ in Paris on March 2, which will be followed by the Bamiyan Expert Working Group on March 3 and 4.
At this last meeting the future of the niches remaining at Bamiyan and the way forward for this site will be discussed among representatives from Afghanistan, international experts, donors and other stakeholders.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
Source,
http://english.pravda.ru/history/01-03-2011/117057-bamiyan_buddha-0/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed#
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Reconstructing Afghanistan's bombed Buddhas of Bamiyan
By Liat Clark01 March 11
Ten years after the Taliban destroyed Afghanistan's famous Buddhas of Bamiyan, a German professor is claiming that at least one can be restored.
In 2001, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar passed an order to destroy the ancient Gandhara-era sculptures after clerics demanded all symbols of idolatry be stripped from the country. Despite protests from the Organisation of the Islamic conference, dynamiting of the sacred site commenced on 2 March after firing artillery failed to do enough damage.
Erwin Emmerling of Munich's Technical University wants to use what is left of the statues -- hundreds of broken sandstone fragments totalling around two tonnes -- to rebuild the smaller of the two 1,500-year-old structures. He's due to present his proposal to UNESCO and the Afghan government at a conference in Paris.
Various international institutions have pledged to help rebuild the once-sacred Buddhist pilgrimage site. He has suggested reconstructing the smaller, 38 metre-high, two metre-deep statue, because it is more manageable in scope than the 55-metre-high, 12-metre-deep larger one.
Professor Emmerling led an 18-month research project at the Chair of Restoration, Art, Technology and Conservation Science in Munich to try and establish the best method for putting the statues back together. He argued that due to the weather conditions in the Hazarajat region, synthetic materials would not be a suitable solution for restoration. Instead, he is proposing the original materials be injected with an organic silicon and pieced back together.
The fragments he hopes to use are currently being stored in a temporary warehouse, with the largest remains having been covered and left at the site. "That will only last for a few years, because the sandstone is very porous," Emmerling said. If his proposal is accepted, a factory will need to be built nearby, or alternatively the 1,400 rocks could be transported to Germany.
The study also revealed new details about the creation and make-up of the two statues, which lie 160 miles west of Kabul on the old Silk Road. Firstly, Emmerling and his team were able to better determine the sculptures' age using mass spectometer tests (previous research was based on the style of garments the two figures are clothed in). Material in the clay fragments dated the larger statue at 544 to 595AD, and the smaller at 591 to 644AD.
It was also discovered that the statues had once been brightly painted (see the artist's impression in the gallery below), something that was maintained over the years with additional coats of paint before the region converted to Islam and the practice was dropped. The results chime with ancient texts that cite stories of giant Buddha sculptures, one red and one white. The clothes were made separately of clay, while the bodies of the statues were carved straight out of the cliff side
"The surfaces are perfectly smooth -- of a quality otherwise only found in fired materials such as porcelain," says Professor Emmerling.
The base layer was held together inside with ropes attached to wooden pegs that miraculously survived the explosion, leaving clues about the construction we would otherwise never have known. The site is also filled with countless other historical relics, after Buddhist monks built shrines in caves surrounding the cliff.
The Paris conference held to determine the fate of the statues' conservation will be followed by a two-day meeting of the Bamiyan Expert Working Group, which was set up in 2002 to protect the site.
On remembering the 10th anniversary of the statues destruction, the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, said: "The two monumental statues had stood for one and a half millennia as proud testimonies to the greatness of our shared humanity. They were destroyed in the context of the conflict devastating Afghanistan and to undermine the power of culture as a cohesive force for the Afghan people."
UNESCO is expected to be against the reconstruction, preferring other methods of preservation, however the decision is ultimately down to the Afghan government.
Source,
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-03/01/afghanistan-buddhas-of-bamiyan-reconstruction?page=2
Ten years after the Taliban destroyed Afghanistan's famous Buddhas of Bamiyan, a German professor is claiming that at least one can be restored.
In 2001, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar passed an order to destroy the ancient Gandhara-era sculptures after clerics demanded all symbols of idolatry be stripped from the country. Despite protests from the Organisation of the Islamic conference, dynamiting of the sacred site commenced on 2 March after firing artillery failed to do enough damage.
Erwin Emmerling of Munich's Technical University wants to use what is left of the statues -- hundreds of broken sandstone fragments totalling around two tonnes -- to rebuild the smaller of the two 1,500-year-old structures. He's due to present his proposal to UNESCO and the Afghan government at a conference in Paris.
Various international institutions have pledged to help rebuild the once-sacred Buddhist pilgrimage site. He has suggested reconstructing the smaller, 38 metre-high, two metre-deep statue, because it is more manageable in scope than the 55-metre-high, 12-metre-deep larger one.
Professor Emmerling led an 18-month research project at the Chair of Restoration, Art, Technology and Conservation Science in Munich to try and establish the best method for putting the statues back together. He argued that due to the weather conditions in the Hazarajat region, synthetic materials would not be a suitable solution for restoration. Instead, he is proposing the original materials be injected with an organic silicon and pieced back together.
The fragments he hopes to use are currently being stored in a temporary warehouse, with the largest remains having been covered and left at the site. "That will only last for a few years, because the sandstone is very porous," Emmerling said. If his proposal is accepted, a factory will need to be built nearby, or alternatively the 1,400 rocks could be transported to Germany.
The study also revealed new details about the creation and make-up of the two statues, which lie 160 miles west of Kabul on the old Silk Road. Firstly, Emmerling and his team were able to better determine the sculptures' age using mass spectometer tests (previous research was based on the style of garments the two figures are clothed in). Material in the clay fragments dated the larger statue at 544 to 595AD, and the smaller at 591 to 644AD.
It was also discovered that the statues had once been brightly painted (see the artist's impression in the gallery below), something that was maintained over the years with additional coats of paint before the region converted to Islam and the practice was dropped. The results chime with ancient texts that cite stories of giant Buddha sculptures, one red and one white. The clothes were made separately of clay, while the bodies of the statues were carved straight out of the cliff side
"The surfaces are perfectly smooth -- of a quality otherwise only found in fired materials such as porcelain," says Professor Emmerling.
The base layer was held together inside with ropes attached to wooden pegs that miraculously survived the explosion, leaving clues about the construction we would otherwise never have known. The site is also filled with countless other historical relics, after Buddhist monks built shrines in caves surrounding the cliff.
The Paris conference held to determine the fate of the statues' conservation will be followed by a two-day meeting of the Bamiyan Expert Working Group, which was set up in 2002 to protect the site.
On remembering the 10th anniversary of the statues destruction, the Director-General of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, said: "The two monumental statues had stood for one and a half millennia as proud testimonies to the greatness of our shared humanity. They were destroyed in the context of the conflict devastating Afghanistan and to undermine the power of culture as a cohesive force for the Afghan people."
UNESCO is expected to be against the reconstruction, preferring other methods of preservation, however the decision is ultimately down to the Afghan government.
Source,
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-03/01/afghanistan-buddhas-of-bamiyan-reconstruction?page=2
UN marks 10th anniversary of destruction of Buddha statues in Afghanistan
28 February 2011 –
On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the destruction of the giant Buddha statues of Bamiyan, in Afghanistan, by the then-ruling fundamentalist Islamic Taliban, the United Nations cultural chief today called on the world to protect the heritage of humanity from damage, turmoil and theft.
“The two monumental statues had stood for one and a half millennia as proud testimonies to the greatness of our shared humanity,” the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, said in a statement. “They were destroyed in the context of the conflict devastating Afghanistan and to undermine the power of culture as a cohesive force for the Afghan people.”
Ms. Bokova noted that UNESCO and the world “watched helplessly” ten years ago as Taliban Government leader Mullah Mohammed Omar ordered tanks and artillery to bombard and dynamite the huge statues carved in enormous mountain niches, beginning on 2 March 2001.
“Since then, we have witnessed other instances where cultural heritage has fallen prey to conflict, political turmoil and misappropriation,” she added, calling on governments, educators and the media to raise awareness of various international accords preserving cultural properties and banning looting, smuggling and the illicit trade in cultural objects.
Tolerance and cultural rapprochement will be the theme of a commemorative forum at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters on 2 March, followed by the 9th Bamiyan Expert Working Group on 3 and 4 March – both of which are being organized with Afghanistan’s Permanent Delegation to UNESCO.
Formed in 2002, the Expert Working Group brings together Afghan officials, international experts, donors and other stakeholders with the aim of safeguarding Bamiyan. The future of the niches and options to present the remains of the Buddha statue will be among the subjects to be examined by the group next month.
UNESCO does not favour rebuilding the Buddha statues, but the experts will examine other ways to present the remains and niches while maintaining research and preservation at the site, which testifies to the region’s rich Gandhara school of Buddhist art that integrated different cultural influences from East and West during the 1st to 13th centuries.
The site contains numerous Buddhist monastic ensembles and sanctuaries, as well as fortified edifices from the Islamic period.
Source,
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=37645&Cr=afghan&Cr1=
On the eve of the 10th anniversary of the destruction of the giant Buddha statues of Bamiyan, in Afghanistan, by the then-ruling fundamentalist Islamic Taliban, the United Nations cultural chief today called on the world to protect the heritage of humanity from damage, turmoil and theft.
“The two monumental statues had stood for one and a half millennia as proud testimonies to the greatness of our shared humanity,” the Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Irina Bokova, said in a statement. “They were destroyed in the context of the conflict devastating Afghanistan and to undermine the power of culture as a cohesive force for the Afghan people.”
Ms. Bokova noted that UNESCO and the world “watched helplessly” ten years ago as Taliban Government leader Mullah Mohammed Omar ordered tanks and artillery to bombard and dynamite the huge statues carved in enormous mountain niches, beginning on 2 March 2001.
“Since then, we have witnessed other instances where cultural heritage has fallen prey to conflict, political turmoil and misappropriation,” she added, calling on governments, educators and the media to raise awareness of various international accords preserving cultural properties and banning looting, smuggling and the illicit trade in cultural objects.
Tolerance and cultural rapprochement will be the theme of a commemorative forum at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters on 2 March, followed by the 9th Bamiyan Expert Working Group on 3 and 4 March – both of which are being organized with Afghanistan’s Permanent Delegation to UNESCO.
Formed in 2002, the Expert Working Group brings together Afghan officials, international experts, donors and other stakeholders with the aim of safeguarding Bamiyan. The future of the niches and options to present the remains of the Buddha statue will be among the subjects to be examined by the group next month.
UNESCO does not favour rebuilding the Buddha statues, but the experts will examine other ways to present the remains and niches while maintaining research and preservation at the site, which testifies to the region’s rich Gandhara school of Buddhist art that integrated different cultural influences from East and West during the 1st to 13th centuries.
The site contains numerous Buddhist monastic ensembles and sanctuaries, as well as fortified edifices from the Islamic period.
Source,
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=37645&Cr=afghan&Cr1=
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Is Democracy Always for the Better? The Forgotten Plight of Afghanistan’s Hazara Minority
With the possibility of a democratic pandemic sweeping the Middle East and South Asia it is perhaps worth pausing to reflect on all the implications for a more populist form of government. Afghanistan has had at least the semblance of democracy for almost a decade – yet what is the fate of the minority in a country where, for generations, brutal oppression has been the modus-operandi of the majority?
Admittedly, not many lessons can be taken from the 2010 Afghan election result which saw widespread fraud, physical intimidation and murder of candidates, self-confessed war criminals on the ballot and only three million eligible voters expressing their preference at all in a country of over fifteen million people. Something that might just pique our interest, however, is that of the 249 seats up for grabs one quarter were won by Hazara candidates. This is indicative of two factors: firstly, Hazarajat is one of the safest areas of a country savaged by unrelenting sectarian violence; and secondly, the Hazara people have wholeheartedly embraced democracy and democratic values and fully appreciate the enormous opportunities that allied military intervention has provided.
The journey the Harazaras have taken to arrive at this point is a story of unremitting abuse. Their history follows the depressingly predictable trajectory of a predominantly Shia minority within a Sunni populace made up of Pashtuns, Tajiks and Uzbeks. Marked out by their faith and their mixed Eurasian genetic heritage, the Hazaras have found themselves on the wrong side of an apartheid society, a state of affairs interrupted only by intermittent genocides. The Eighteenth Century Emir, Dost Mohammed Kahn was content with targeted racial taxation, while his eventual successor, Abdur Rahman Khan, preferred to massacre or banish the hated Kafir (infidels). Following the attempt to conquer Afghanistan by the Soviets, the Hazaras were split into two warring factions, secular nationalists based in Pakistan and Khomeni-inspired Islamists who were ultimately successful. However, in subsuming the secular thinkers into their ranks the Iranian-supported Hazaras unified their various resistance factions under the nationalist umbrella of Hezb-eWhadat. The leader of this movement, Abdul Ali Mazari, was subsequently assassinated by a new and terrible Pashtun government made up of the very worst kind of Sunni extremists. The Taliban’s subsequent destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas which so appalled the international community was as much a display of power to the Hazara people sheltering in caves on that same hillside, as it was a statement of Islamic superiority or the removal of blasphemous idols. Whatever atrocities had been committed by the Emirs would pale in comparison to this regime’s truly exceptional brand of evil.
Besudi Hazara chieftains (taken by John Burke in 1879-80 - from wikisource)
Today Afghanistan falls under the purview of international law as overseen by the United Nations. Hazaras have grabbed the opportunity for education and democracy with both hands. Hazaras are to be found in almost every human rights and democracy-promoting organisation throughout the country. Even though they constitute only 9% of the populace over a third of all University entrance tests are taken by young Hazaras.[1] But this should hardly surprise Western observers. The Hazara people have long made education, even the education of women, a priority. Much of the money they raise within their own communities is spent setting up schools in Hazarajat, while arguments over the nature and necessity of pluralism have been raging in Central Afghanistan for generations while the rest of the country were content to allow the eradication of all ethnic, cultural and religious differences. Most tellingly of all, however, Hazara farmers almost unanimously eschew as “un-Islamic” the practice of Poppy growing that has been embraced wholeheartedly by swathes of the Pashtun population. In truth, the Hazaras were ready for liberation in a way the majority Sunni populations simply weren’t.
But of course, however many Hazaras end up in parliament, the Pashtuns and Tajic warlords still control Afghanistan. The pathetic Hamid Karzai may work alongside minorities in his administration but he has no interest in ending his people’s proud tradition of racist oppression. Of all the billions Afghanistan receive in aid money only a fraction of a fraction has been spent in the central regions – no new roads, new schools or new hospitals for the Hazara. Jobs in Kabul and other urban centres are still split along entirely racial lines, with Hazaras finding what manual work they can and still publically scorned by the less-educated majority. The universities are largely controlled by extremist Sunni pseudo-scholars who lack the intelligence of the Hazara students they either exclude or bully into leaving. Hazara youngsters who graduate at the top of their classes in mixed-raced schools suddenly find themselves denied entry to the lowliest universities, even as their less talented Pashtun and Tajic classmates mysteriously start excelling when they come to take entrance tests. While Pashtun-Tajic, Tajic-Uzbek or Uzbek-Pashtun marriages are generally permissible, no Hazara will ever be good enough for the son or daughter of a Sunni household. Finally, lest we forget, the Taliban are still an ugly and active force in Afghan regional politics. Hazara elders are routinely slaughtered by the fascist cowards who still claim divine right to rule the peoples of Afghanistan.
As long as the Afghan government has to bend to the popular will, supporting Hazaras will never be government policy. The only hope for these embattled people lies in the by-products of democracy: in particular, non-discriminatory education, a free press, and the abandonment of primitive fundamentalist religious values. Meanwhile, as we look over the middles east and see regimes on the brink of collapse, if not already toppled, for the first time we have to ask ourselves what the popular will has to say. Women, homosexuals, Christians, Jews, indeed all racial and religious minorities are faced with the possibility that majority opinion is about to make itself heard. I firmly believe, perhaps naively, that a new democracy inevitably transforms over time into a liberal democracy as the necessities of constant compromise and gradually improving educational standards help shape the popular mood. The process of getting there, however, may well be long, violent and scarred by flagrant inequality.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] See Phil Zabriskie’s excellent article for National Geographic: The Outsiders
Source,
http://theharrysmallshow.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/is-democracy-always-for-the-better-the-forgotten-plight-of-afghanistan%e2%80%99s-hazara-minority/
Admittedly, not many lessons can be taken from the 2010 Afghan election result which saw widespread fraud, physical intimidation and murder of candidates, self-confessed war criminals on the ballot and only three million eligible voters expressing their preference at all in a country of over fifteen million people. Something that might just pique our interest, however, is that of the 249 seats up for grabs one quarter were won by Hazara candidates. This is indicative of two factors: firstly, Hazarajat is one of the safest areas of a country savaged by unrelenting sectarian violence; and secondly, the Hazara people have wholeheartedly embraced democracy and democratic values and fully appreciate the enormous opportunities that allied military intervention has provided.
The journey the Harazaras have taken to arrive at this point is a story of unremitting abuse. Their history follows the depressingly predictable trajectory of a predominantly Shia minority within a Sunni populace made up of Pashtuns, Tajiks and Uzbeks. Marked out by their faith and their mixed Eurasian genetic heritage, the Hazaras have found themselves on the wrong side of an apartheid society, a state of affairs interrupted only by intermittent genocides. The Eighteenth Century Emir, Dost Mohammed Kahn was content with targeted racial taxation, while his eventual successor, Abdur Rahman Khan, preferred to massacre or banish the hated Kafir (infidels). Following the attempt to conquer Afghanistan by the Soviets, the Hazaras were split into two warring factions, secular nationalists based in Pakistan and Khomeni-inspired Islamists who were ultimately successful. However, in subsuming the secular thinkers into their ranks the Iranian-supported Hazaras unified their various resistance factions under the nationalist umbrella of Hezb-eWhadat. The leader of this movement, Abdul Ali Mazari, was subsequently assassinated by a new and terrible Pashtun government made up of the very worst kind of Sunni extremists. The Taliban’s subsequent destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas which so appalled the international community was as much a display of power to the Hazara people sheltering in caves on that same hillside, as it was a statement of Islamic superiority or the removal of blasphemous idols. Whatever atrocities had been committed by the Emirs would pale in comparison to this regime’s truly exceptional brand of evil.
Besudi Hazara chieftains (taken by John Burke in 1879-80 - from wikisource)
Today Afghanistan falls under the purview of international law as overseen by the United Nations. Hazaras have grabbed the opportunity for education and democracy with both hands. Hazaras are to be found in almost every human rights and democracy-promoting organisation throughout the country. Even though they constitute only 9% of the populace over a third of all University entrance tests are taken by young Hazaras.[1] But this should hardly surprise Western observers. The Hazara people have long made education, even the education of women, a priority. Much of the money they raise within their own communities is spent setting up schools in Hazarajat, while arguments over the nature and necessity of pluralism have been raging in Central Afghanistan for generations while the rest of the country were content to allow the eradication of all ethnic, cultural and religious differences. Most tellingly of all, however, Hazara farmers almost unanimously eschew as “un-Islamic” the practice of Poppy growing that has been embraced wholeheartedly by swathes of the Pashtun population. In truth, the Hazaras were ready for liberation in a way the majority Sunni populations simply weren’t.
But of course, however many Hazaras end up in parliament, the Pashtuns and Tajic warlords still control Afghanistan. The pathetic Hamid Karzai may work alongside minorities in his administration but he has no interest in ending his people’s proud tradition of racist oppression. Of all the billions Afghanistan receive in aid money only a fraction of a fraction has been spent in the central regions – no new roads, new schools or new hospitals for the Hazara. Jobs in Kabul and other urban centres are still split along entirely racial lines, with Hazaras finding what manual work they can and still publically scorned by the less-educated majority. The universities are largely controlled by extremist Sunni pseudo-scholars who lack the intelligence of the Hazara students they either exclude or bully into leaving. Hazara youngsters who graduate at the top of their classes in mixed-raced schools suddenly find themselves denied entry to the lowliest universities, even as their less talented Pashtun and Tajic classmates mysteriously start excelling when they come to take entrance tests. While Pashtun-Tajic, Tajic-Uzbek or Uzbek-Pashtun marriages are generally permissible, no Hazara will ever be good enough for the son or daughter of a Sunni household. Finally, lest we forget, the Taliban are still an ugly and active force in Afghan regional politics. Hazara elders are routinely slaughtered by the fascist cowards who still claim divine right to rule the peoples of Afghanistan.
As long as the Afghan government has to bend to the popular will, supporting Hazaras will never be government policy. The only hope for these embattled people lies in the by-products of democracy: in particular, non-discriminatory education, a free press, and the abandonment of primitive fundamentalist religious values. Meanwhile, as we look over the middles east and see regimes on the brink of collapse, if not already toppled, for the first time we have to ask ourselves what the popular will has to say. Women, homosexuals, Christians, Jews, indeed all racial and religious minorities are faced with the possibility that majority opinion is about to make itself heard. I firmly believe, perhaps naively, that a new democracy inevitably transforms over time into a liberal democracy as the necessities of constant compromise and gradually improving educational standards help shape the popular mood. The process of getting there, however, may well be long, violent and scarred by flagrant inequality.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] See Phil Zabriskie’s excellent article for National Geographic: The Outsiders
Source,
http://theharrysmallshow.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/is-democracy-always-for-the-better-the-forgotten-plight-of-afghanistan%e2%80%99s-hazara-minority/
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Ten years after the destruction of Buddhist relics in Afghanistan
Only the outline of the one of the two Bamiyan Buddha statues is leftTen years ago the Taliban destroyed two huge, ancient Buddha statues in Afghanistan's Bamiyan region. That eliminated more than 1,000 years of cultural heritage, and much of the region's Hindu population has since left.
Exactly 10 years ago, on February 26, 2001, Taliban leader Mullah Omar ordered the destruction of two enormous and ancient Buddha statues in the Bamiyan region of Afghanistan. Monks who came to the region along with caravan routes connecting India and China had carved them into the face of a sandstone cliff some 1,500 years ago. Ratbil Shamel, of Deutsche Welle's Afghan service, answered questions about the situation there today.
Deutsche Welle: Can you tell me a bit about the Bamiyan area? How significant are its minority Hindu and Hazara populations? What role do they play in society there?
Ratbil Shamel: The Bamiyan region connected caravan routes between India and China, making it a significant region. It was a very interesting and important economic center, which is what brought these monks to the region. Also, Bamiyan has plenty of water and good soil for agriculture. So they carved these Buddha statues into the sandstone cliff along with very many living quarters. According to some sources they created as many as 900 living units.
Also, Mongol tribes settled in the region and were eventually converted to Islam. Those are the people we call the Hazara today. Over the years the region was intentionally left undeveloped to undermine them, and people still live in the cliff dwellings today. Since the fall of the Taliban, Bamiyan has experienced a kind of rebirth.
The Buddha statues themselves were never considered by the local population as religious icons. To them, they were just a part of history which had always been there. The people themselves never tried to destroy the statues.
What was the significance of Mullah Omar's edict that the statues should be destroyed?
For the Taliban, Mullah Omar is the "Emir" and therefore the leader of all believers in the world. They are anything but modest. And if the leader of all the world's believers delivers a religious edict, then all Muslims are obliged to obey. Of course, the people of Afghanistan didn't do so - the statues were part of their culture. Taliban fighters did it. They destroyed more than a thousand years of cultural heritage.
How much of an effect does this ideology have on the Afghani population?
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Deutsche Welle's Ratbil ShamelEven today Mullah Omar's followers believe his word is final and above everything else. If he orders suicide bombings or the destruction of schools, then the population will suffer from that. It's a very large problem.
How much religious tolerance exists in Afghan society today as a whole?
First of all, people are generally not on the side of the Taliban. So far there have been no demonstrations in favor of the Taliban or al Qaeda, as there have been in Pakistan.
The fact that Hindus are actually the original inhabitants of the region who never gave up their religion - that is not accepted with tolerance amongst the population. Hindu children struggle in schools, their families have difficulties with the authorities and the government either won't or can't protect them. Tolerance towards Hindus has dwindled with 30 years of war, and many of them are leaving the country, as the Jews did.
People are leaving Afghanistan. So how close is the link between the country and its immigrant diaspora?
All of the refugees who have fled Afghanistan maintain a very close link with the country, because they are often the ones who are supplying their families with money. Without them, many families would be completely without means. There are hardly any Afghans in exile who have no link to Afghanistan. At the very least they are usually supporting family members or former neighbors.
What kind a societal impact does this have on Afghanistan?
It has enabled thousands of families to send their children to school. Also, relatives in exile send home books and try to chat with their family over the Internet. This in itself has a positive impact, because it means less people are willing to believe radical propaganda telling them that people in the West are immoral enemies of Islam wanting to destroy Afghanistan's pride.
How have the Afghan people's conceptions of what Islam is - and how it should be practiced - changed as a result?
The biggest change is that people recognize that the Taliban and al Qaeda have nothing to do with the reality of Islam. Islam is a peaceful religion, and we lived for hundreds of years in harmony with our neighbors - whether they were Hindus or others.
The average Afghan has a background of Sufism, which preaches to "live and let live." The radicalization and politicization of Islam began after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, when it was presented as an alternative to the "godless communists."
People now are less under the influence of Taliban propaganda - and they have less faith in the Taliban - because they've seen what that vision of Afghanistan's future looks like. That could change if the development of the country doesn't succeed at all. But they want peace, because it's something most of them have never experienced. The absolute majority of Afghans don't know what it means to live in peace; they only know that it's something they feel a deep yearning for.
Interview: Gerhard Schneibel
Editor: Nicole Goebel
Source,
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14874410,00.html
Exactly 10 years ago, on February 26, 2001, Taliban leader Mullah Omar ordered the destruction of two enormous and ancient Buddha statues in the Bamiyan region of Afghanistan. Monks who came to the region along with caravan routes connecting India and China had carved them into the face of a sandstone cliff some 1,500 years ago. Ratbil Shamel, of Deutsche Welle's Afghan service, answered questions about the situation there today.
Deutsche Welle: Can you tell me a bit about the Bamiyan area? How significant are its minority Hindu and Hazara populations? What role do they play in society there?
Ratbil Shamel: The Bamiyan region connected caravan routes between India and China, making it a significant region. It was a very interesting and important economic center, which is what brought these monks to the region. Also, Bamiyan has plenty of water and good soil for agriculture. So they carved these Buddha statues into the sandstone cliff along with very many living quarters. According to some sources they created as many as 900 living units.
Also, Mongol tribes settled in the region and were eventually converted to Islam. Those are the people we call the Hazara today. Over the years the region was intentionally left undeveloped to undermine them, and people still live in the cliff dwellings today. Since the fall of the Taliban, Bamiyan has experienced a kind of rebirth.
The Buddha statues themselves were never considered by the local population as religious icons. To them, they were just a part of history which had always been there. The people themselves never tried to destroy the statues.
What was the significance of Mullah Omar's edict that the statues should be destroyed?
For the Taliban, Mullah Omar is the "Emir" and therefore the leader of all believers in the world. They are anything but modest. And if the leader of all the world's believers delivers a religious edict, then all Muslims are obliged to obey. Of course, the people of Afghanistan didn't do so - the statues were part of their culture. Taliban fighters did it. They destroyed more than a thousand years of cultural heritage.
How much of an effect does this ideology have on the Afghani population?
Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: Deutsche Welle's Ratbil ShamelEven today Mullah Omar's followers believe his word is final and above everything else. If he orders suicide bombings or the destruction of schools, then the population will suffer from that. It's a very large problem.
How much religious tolerance exists in Afghan society today as a whole?
First of all, people are generally not on the side of the Taliban. So far there have been no demonstrations in favor of the Taliban or al Qaeda, as there have been in Pakistan.
The fact that Hindus are actually the original inhabitants of the region who never gave up their religion - that is not accepted with tolerance amongst the population. Hindu children struggle in schools, their families have difficulties with the authorities and the government either won't or can't protect them. Tolerance towards Hindus has dwindled with 30 years of war, and many of them are leaving the country, as the Jews did.
People are leaving Afghanistan. So how close is the link between the country and its immigrant diaspora?
All of the refugees who have fled Afghanistan maintain a very close link with the country, because they are often the ones who are supplying their families with money. Without them, many families would be completely without means. There are hardly any Afghans in exile who have no link to Afghanistan. At the very least they are usually supporting family members or former neighbors.
What kind a societal impact does this have on Afghanistan?
It has enabled thousands of families to send their children to school. Also, relatives in exile send home books and try to chat with their family over the Internet. This in itself has a positive impact, because it means less people are willing to believe radical propaganda telling them that people in the West are immoral enemies of Islam wanting to destroy Afghanistan's pride.
How have the Afghan people's conceptions of what Islam is - and how it should be practiced - changed as a result?
The biggest change is that people recognize that the Taliban and al Qaeda have nothing to do with the reality of Islam. Islam is a peaceful religion, and we lived for hundreds of years in harmony with our neighbors - whether they were Hindus or others.
The average Afghan has a background of Sufism, which preaches to "live and let live." The radicalization and politicization of Islam began after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, when it was presented as an alternative to the "godless communists."
People now are less under the influence of Taliban propaganda - and they have less faith in the Taliban - because they've seen what that vision of Afghanistan's future looks like. That could change if the development of the country doesn't succeed at all. But they want peace, because it's something most of them have never experienced. The absolute majority of Afghans don't know what it means to live in peace; they only know that it's something they feel a deep yearning for.
Interview: Gerhard Schneibel
Editor: Nicole Goebel
Source,
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14874410,00.html
Looking at ‘the other’ through very different lenses
R.M. Vaughan: The Exhibitionist
Rafal Gerszak at Pikto Gallery
Until March 6, 55 Mill St., Building 59-103, Toronto; pikto.com/gallery
Two very different photographic experiences await viewers with the fortitude to go stroller-dodging through Toronto’s Distillery District.
Rafal Gerszak’s Thousand, a photo-documentary of the Hazara community in Afghanistan – a minority group who live under near-constant threat of violence from the dominant populations – is a remarkably gentle show, given the ungentle reality of the Hazara people. Taken with an old camera (i.e. using rolls of film, not digital files) that Gerszak bought in Afghanistan, the portraits and landscapes are suffused with a smoky, indistinct light, a dreamy texture that makes this largely unknown people seem even more difficult to know.
I know it’s cliché to talk about the warmth of film compared with digital imagery’s crisp exactness (not to mention the whole mysterious peoples in faraway lands chestnut), but sometimes the film/digital cliché is just true (and people you don’t know are mysterious, whether they live on another continent or next door). But Gerszak is careful not to fall into the exoticizing traps of Orientalism – while the photos may look as if they were taken through a cloud of incense haze, the subjects are too self-aware, and camera-aware, to be read as romanticized others, as uninformed objects of questionable anthropological study.
In one image, a woman stands in front of a plaster wall that looks like it was the victim of a bad mould attack, or worse. Small and finely featured, the woman nevertheless owns the pictorial space. Her gaze is direct, and despite all the distressed surface that surrounds her, her expression conveys both confidence and caution.
In another image, an elderly man sits by himself in a rundown café, surrounded by empty chairs (the implication is clear – men and women of fighting age, adults who might be his friends or relatives, are otherwise occupied). The man looks to the floor, pensively. It would be easy to read this as a maudlin image, but only if one does not take into account the man’s perfectly folded scarf, tidy appearance and flawlessly knotted turban. This is not a bedraggled survivor, but rather a man whose fate, which we can only assume has been very likely tainted by violence, has not robbed him of his innate sense of self-presentation, indeed his natty style.
The standout image from Thousand, for me, is a blunt head-and-shoulders portrait of a bearded man in his mid-40s (my age), dressed in a military-style jacket and sporting a haphazardly wound turban. Alarmingly handsome, in that crinkly Harrison Ford way, the man could be a Hazara movie star. His sideways glance is caught midway between mocking and crabby, and his mouth is equally uncertain whether to smile or sneer.
Apparently, no matter what one’s situation, the quizzical distrust of the camera remains universal.
Stephen Waddell at Clark & Faria
Until March 20, 55 Mill Street, Building 2, Toronto, www.monteclarkgallery.com
It’s perhaps unfair to compare Stephen Waddell’s photographs of street life in Vancouver and Berlin with Gerszak’s practice. British Columbia is not Afghanistan, parallel booming narcotics trades aside. Waddell has not tasked himself with making a record of a threatened people. Nevertheless, similarities linger.
Both Waddell and Gerszak photograph found people, and thus engage in dialogues about the intrusiveness of the lens and the problematics of capturing strangers without demeaning or otherwise objectifying said subjects. Gerszak’s approach is more direct – his subjects clearly know they are being photographed. Waddell presents a more sneaky, and thus more fraught, strategy. Most of his subjects are not facing the camera: They are recorded with their backs turned or while looking away from the photographer’s front-and-centre position.
When Waddell’s casual, sidestep strategy works, it really works. For instance, an image of a rail-thin older woman taking a break outside of a Berlin cinema, her hip titling sexily away from the focal point, is coy and considered. Is she posing? We can’t know. In another work, a young woman with bright green hair tiptoes across a railway track. We see only the back of her dyed head, and her body wrapped in a cheery summer dress. Did she agree to this photograph? Again, we are limited in what we can know.
The most intriguing photo of the suite is of a street person pushing a packed, bright-blue shopping cart. I write “street person” with confidence only after asking the gallerist some core questions: Is this an actor? If not, does Waddell know this person? Did the subject agree to be photographed? I am very suspicious of photographers who photograph the poor and possibly abject, and I hate, to red-eyed rage, the poverty tourism generated by too many photographers in this country.
Another reason I grilled the gallerist is that the person pushing the cart is wearing a bright-green goblin Halloween mask – an inherently performative gesture. This mask, I learned, was the central reason for Waddell deciding to photograph someone he sees every day in his Vancouver neighbourhood.
Without question, Waddell’s magpie-sharp eye for accidental, found colour combinations is sharp and smart, as witnessed in his many photographs of Berlin’s non-stop, carnivalesque vibe. But to think that all Waddell saw of this person, who may or may not be living in diminished circumstances, was the mask, that Waddell may have read this person as a mere visual stimulant, not a human being, unnerved me. So, I asked.
Waddell, I’m told, is familiar with his subject and the subject was aware of the camera. Fine.
Perhaps in an age when we are all being reduced to visual fodder, through Facebook and other image-generating/delivering systems, Waddell’s half-considered, half-accidental approach to photographing “the other” is the best we can hope for.
Whatever you decide about the humanistic implications of Waddell’s work, you can never say the artist takes a boring picture. The amount of unpacking his see-saw semiotics require will keep any viewer busy for hours.
Source,
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/rm-vaughan/photos-from-gerszak-waddell-highlight-visual-distance/article1920741/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Toronto&utm_content=1920741
Rafal Gerszak at Pikto Gallery
Until March 6, 55 Mill St., Building 59-103, Toronto; pikto.com/gallery
Two very different photographic experiences await viewers with the fortitude to go stroller-dodging through Toronto’s Distillery District.
Rafal Gerszak’s Thousand, a photo-documentary of the Hazara community in Afghanistan – a minority group who live under near-constant threat of violence from the dominant populations – is a remarkably gentle show, given the ungentle reality of the Hazara people. Taken with an old camera (i.e. using rolls of film, not digital files) that Gerszak bought in Afghanistan, the portraits and landscapes are suffused with a smoky, indistinct light, a dreamy texture that makes this largely unknown people seem even more difficult to know.
I know it’s cliché to talk about the warmth of film compared with digital imagery’s crisp exactness (not to mention the whole mysterious peoples in faraway lands chestnut), but sometimes the film/digital cliché is just true (and people you don’t know are mysterious, whether they live on another continent or next door). But Gerszak is careful not to fall into the exoticizing traps of Orientalism – while the photos may look as if they were taken through a cloud of incense haze, the subjects are too self-aware, and camera-aware, to be read as romanticized others, as uninformed objects of questionable anthropological study.
In one image, a woman stands in front of a plaster wall that looks like it was the victim of a bad mould attack, or worse. Small and finely featured, the woman nevertheless owns the pictorial space. Her gaze is direct, and despite all the distressed surface that surrounds her, her expression conveys both confidence and caution.
In another image, an elderly man sits by himself in a rundown café, surrounded by empty chairs (the implication is clear – men and women of fighting age, adults who might be his friends or relatives, are otherwise occupied). The man looks to the floor, pensively. It would be easy to read this as a maudlin image, but only if one does not take into account the man’s perfectly folded scarf, tidy appearance and flawlessly knotted turban. This is not a bedraggled survivor, but rather a man whose fate, which we can only assume has been very likely tainted by violence, has not robbed him of his innate sense of self-presentation, indeed his natty style.
The standout image from Thousand, for me, is a blunt head-and-shoulders portrait of a bearded man in his mid-40s (my age), dressed in a military-style jacket and sporting a haphazardly wound turban. Alarmingly handsome, in that crinkly Harrison Ford way, the man could be a Hazara movie star. His sideways glance is caught midway between mocking and crabby, and his mouth is equally uncertain whether to smile or sneer.
Apparently, no matter what one’s situation, the quizzical distrust of the camera remains universal.
Stephen Waddell at Clark & Faria
Until March 20, 55 Mill Street, Building 2, Toronto, www.monteclarkgallery.com
It’s perhaps unfair to compare Stephen Waddell’s photographs of street life in Vancouver and Berlin with Gerszak’s practice. British Columbia is not Afghanistan, parallel booming narcotics trades aside. Waddell has not tasked himself with making a record of a threatened people. Nevertheless, similarities linger.
Both Waddell and Gerszak photograph found people, and thus engage in dialogues about the intrusiveness of the lens and the problematics of capturing strangers without demeaning or otherwise objectifying said subjects. Gerszak’s approach is more direct – his subjects clearly know they are being photographed. Waddell presents a more sneaky, and thus more fraught, strategy. Most of his subjects are not facing the camera: They are recorded with their backs turned or while looking away from the photographer’s front-and-centre position.
When Waddell’s casual, sidestep strategy works, it really works. For instance, an image of a rail-thin older woman taking a break outside of a Berlin cinema, her hip titling sexily away from the focal point, is coy and considered. Is she posing? We can’t know. In another work, a young woman with bright green hair tiptoes across a railway track. We see only the back of her dyed head, and her body wrapped in a cheery summer dress. Did she agree to this photograph? Again, we are limited in what we can know.
The most intriguing photo of the suite is of a street person pushing a packed, bright-blue shopping cart. I write “street person” with confidence only after asking the gallerist some core questions: Is this an actor? If not, does Waddell know this person? Did the subject agree to be photographed? I am very suspicious of photographers who photograph the poor and possibly abject, and I hate, to red-eyed rage, the poverty tourism generated by too many photographers in this country.
Another reason I grilled the gallerist is that the person pushing the cart is wearing a bright-green goblin Halloween mask – an inherently performative gesture. This mask, I learned, was the central reason for Waddell deciding to photograph someone he sees every day in his Vancouver neighbourhood.
Without question, Waddell’s magpie-sharp eye for accidental, found colour combinations is sharp and smart, as witnessed in his many photographs of Berlin’s non-stop, carnivalesque vibe. But to think that all Waddell saw of this person, who may or may not be living in diminished circumstances, was the mask, that Waddell may have read this person as a mere visual stimulant, not a human being, unnerved me. So, I asked.
Waddell, I’m told, is familiar with his subject and the subject was aware of the camera. Fine.
Perhaps in an age when we are all being reduced to visual fodder, through Facebook and other image-generating/delivering systems, Waddell’s half-considered, half-accidental approach to photographing “the other” is the best we can hope for.
Whatever you decide about the humanistic implications of Waddell’s work, you can never say the artist takes a boring picture. The amount of unpacking his see-saw semiotics require will keep any viewer busy for hours.
Source,
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/rm-vaughan/photos-from-gerszak-waddell-highlight-visual-distance/article1920741/?utm_medium=Feeds%3A%20RSS%2FAtom&utm_source=Toronto&utm_content=1920741
Friday, February 25, 2011
Bamiyan Buddhas once glowed in red, white and blue : Eurek Alert
Bamiyan Buddhas once glowed in red, white and blue
TUM conservators research the ruins of the statues and offer an outlook on the prospect of restoration
This release is available in Spanish, French and German.
IMAGE: The illustration shows the colored appearance of the Bamiyan Buddhas’ robes at the end of the 10th century. Parts damaged in later periods, which cannot be reconstructed, are made visible.
Credit: Arnold Metzinger
The world watched in horror as Taliban fanatics ten years ago blew up the two gigantic Buddha statues that had since the 6th century looked out over the Bamiyan Valley in what is now Afghanistan. Located on the Silk Road, until the 10th century the 55 and 38 meter tall works of art formed the centerpiece of one of the world's largest Buddhist monastic complexes. Thousands of monks tended countless shrines in the niches and caves that pierced a kilometer-long cliff face.
Since the suppression of the Taliban regime, European and Japanese experts, working on behalf of UNESCO and coordinated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), have been endeavoring to secure the remains and restore access to the statues. The fragments are being very carefully examined, as prior to the explosion the Buddha statues had barely been researched. For a year and a half now, scientists from the Chair of Restoration, Art Technology and Conservation Science have been studying several hundred fragments at the TUM. Their findings not only contribute to our understanding of this world cultural heritage site, they may also enable the parts recovered to be reassembled:
Coloration: "The Buddhas once had an intensely colorful appearance," says Professor Erwin Emmerling. His team discovered that prior to the conversion of the region to Islam, the statues were overpainted several times, presumably because the colors had faded. The outer robes, or sangati, were painted dark blue on the inside and pink, and later bright orange, on top. In a further phase, the larger Buddha was painted red and the smaller white, while the interior of the robes was repainted in a paler blue. The graphic reconstruction undertaken by the TUM researchers confirms ancient traditions: sources as far back as the 11th century speak of one red Buddha and one moon-white. The other parts of the figures may possibly have had a white priming coat, but that can no longer be proven beyond doubt.
IMAGE: Restorers from the Technische Universitaet Muenchen have analyzed hundreds of fragments of the Bamiyan Buddhas.
Credit: Catharina Blaensdorf / TU Muenche
Construction technique: The statues themselves were hewn out of the cliff; however, the flowing garments were formed by craftsmen using clay, which was applied in two or three layers. The remains display an astonishing degree of artistic skill. "The surfaces are perfectly smooth – of a quality otherwise only found in fired materials such as porcelain," says Professor Emmerling. In the clay, the TUM conservators found straw and chaff which absorb moisture, animal hairs which stabilize the plaster like fine glass fibers, and quartz and other additives which prevent shrinkage. The bottom layer of plaster was held in place with ropes attached to small wooden pegs. This allowed the craftsmen of old to apply unusually thick layers of up to eight centimeters. "These have survived not only nearly 1500 years of history, but even the explosion in some parts," adds Professor Emmerling in amazement.
Dating: Previous attempts to determine when the statues originated were estimates based on the style of the Buddha's robes or similar criteria. Now mass spectrometer tests at the ETH Zurich and the University of Kiel have determined the age of the organic material in the clay layers. The TUM scientists have, as a result, been able to date the construction of the smaller Buddha to between 544 and 595 and the larger Buddha between 591 and 644.
Conservation: How can the fragments at this world heritage site be conserved for the future? The ICOMOS teams have in the meantime stacked the ruins in temporary warehouses in the Bamiyan Valley. Larger pieces have been covered over in situ. "However, that will only last for a few years, because the sandstone is very porous," Professor Emmerling explains. Conventional methods of conservation are out of the question. "On this scale, under the climatic conditions in the Bamiyan Valley, the behavior of the synthetic resins usually used would vary too widely relative to the natural rock." Expert conservator Professor Emmerling has therefore joined forces with Consolidas, a company founded by a TUM graduate, to refine a process recently developed by the latter for possible use on the Buddha fragments: instead of synthetic resins, it might be possible to inject an organic silicon compound in the stone.
IMAGE: The bottom layer of the Bamiyan Buddhas' plaster was held in place with ropes.
Credit: Edmund Melzl / ICOMOS
In addition, the TUM conservators are also working on a 3D model of the cliff face that shows all of the pieces in their former position. Professor Emmerling considers a reconstruction of the smaller Buddha to be fundamentally possible – he argues in favor of reassembling the recovered parts, rather than attempting to reconstruct the original condition in antiquity. As far as the larger Buddha is concerned, in view of its depth of around 12 meters, Professor Emmerling is more skeptical. The smaller figure with a depth of around two meters was more along the lines of a relief. However, even to restore this figure, there are political and practical obstacles to overcome. Conservation of the fragments would require the construction of a small factory in the Bamiyan Valley – alternatively some 1400 rocks weighing up to two tons each would have to be transported to Germany. A conference to be held in Paris next week will consider the continuing fate of the Buddhas.
###
Contact:
Prof. Erwin Emmerling
Technische Universitaet Muenchen
Lehrstuhl für Restaurierung, Kunsttechnologie und Konservierungswissenschaft
Tel.: 089 21124 -559 / -568
E-mail: emmerling@tum.de
Source,
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/tum-bbo022511.php
TUM conservators research the ruins of the statues and offer an outlook on the prospect of restoration
This release is available in Spanish, French and German.
IMAGE: The illustration shows the colored appearance of the Bamiyan Buddhas’ robes at the end of the 10th century. Parts damaged in later periods, which cannot be reconstructed, are made visible.
Credit: Arnold Metzinger
The world watched in horror as Taliban fanatics ten years ago blew up the two gigantic Buddha statues that had since the 6th century looked out over the Bamiyan Valley in what is now Afghanistan. Located on the Silk Road, until the 10th century the 55 and 38 meter tall works of art formed the centerpiece of one of the world's largest Buddhist monastic complexes. Thousands of monks tended countless shrines in the niches and caves that pierced a kilometer-long cliff face.
Since the suppression of the Taliban regime, European and Japanese experts, working on behalf of UNESCO and coordinated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), have been endeavoring to secure the remains and restore access to the statues. The fragments are being very carefully examined, as prior to the explosion the Buddha statues had barely been researched. For a year and a half now, scientists from the Chair of Restoration, Art Technology and Conservation Science have been studying several hundred fragments at the TUM. Their findings not only contribute to our understanding of this world cultural heritage site, they may also enable the parts recovered to be reassembled:
Coloration: "The Buddhas once had an intensely colorful appearance," says Professor Erwin Emmerling. His team discovered that prior to the conversion of the region to Islam, the statues were overpainted several times, presumably because the colors had faded. The outer robes, or sangati, were painted dark blue on the inside and pink, and later bright orange, on top. In a further phase, the larger Buddha was painted red and the smaller white, while the interior of the robes was repainted in a paler blue. The graphic reconstruction undertaken by the TUM researchers confirms ancient traditions: sources as far back as the 11th century speak of one red Buddha and one moon-white. The other parts of the figures may possibly have had a white priming coat, but that can no longer be proven beyond doubt.
IMAGE: Restorers from the Technische Universitaet Muenchen have analyzed hundreds of fragments of the Bamiyan Buddhas.
Credit: Catharina Blaensdorf / TU Muenche
Construction technique: The statues themselves were hewn out of the cliff; however, the flowing garments were formed by craftsmen using clay, which was applied in two or three layers. The remains display an astonishing degree of artistic skill. "The surfaces are perfectly smooth – of a quality otherwise only found in fired materials such as porcelain," says Professor Emmerling. In the clay, the TUM conservators found straw and chaff which absorb moisture, animal hairs which stabilize the plaster like fine glass fibers, and quartz and other additives which prevent shrinkage. The bottom layer of plaster was held in place with ropes attached to small wooden pegs. This allowed the craftsmen of old to apply unusually thick layers of up to eight centimeters. "These have survived not only nearly 1500 years of history, but even the explosion in some parts," adds Professor Emmerling in amazement.
Dating: Previous attempts to determine when the statues originated were estimates based on the style of the Buddha's robes or similar criteria. Now mass spectrometer tests at the ETH Zurich and the University of Kiel have determined the age of the organic material in the clay layers. The TUM scientists have, as a result, been able to date the construction of the smaller Buddha to between 544 and 595 and the larger Buddha between 591 and 644.
Conservation: How can the fragments at this world heritage site be conserved for the future? The ICOMOS teams have in the meantime stacked the ruins in temporary warehouses in the Bamiyan Valley. Larger pieces have been covered over in situ. "However, that will only last for a few years, because the sandstone is very porous," Professor Emmerling explains. Conventional methods of conservation are out of the question. "On this scale, under the climatic conditions in the Bamiyan Valley, the behavior of the synthetic resins usually used would vary too widely relative to the natural rock." Expert conservator Professor Emmerling has therefore joined forces with Consolidas, a company founded by a TUM graduate, to refine a process recently developed by the latter for possible use on the Buddha fragments: instead of synthetic resins, it might be possible to inject an organic silicon compound in the stone.
IMAGE: The bottom layer of the Bamiyan Buddhas' plaster was held in place with ropes.
Credit: Edmund Melzl / ICOMOS
In addition, the TUM conservators are also working on a 3D model of the cliff face that shows all of the pieces in their former position. Professor Emmerling considers a reconstruction of the smaller Buddha to be fundamentally possible – he argues in favor of reassembling the recovered parts, rather than attempting to reconstruct the original condition in antiquity. As far as the larger Buddha is concerned, in view of its depth of around 12 meters, Professor Emmerling is more skeptical. The smaller figure with a depth of around two meters was more along the lines of a relief. However, even to restore this figure, there are political and practical obstacles to overcome. Conservation of the fragments would require the construction of a small factory in the Bamiyan Valley – alternatively some 1400 rocks weighing up to two tons each would have to be transported to Germany. A conference to be held in Paris next week will consider the continuing fate of the Buddhas.
###
Contact:
Prof. Erwin Emmerling
Technische Universitaet Muenchen
Lehrstuhl für Restaurierung, Kunsttechnologie und Konservierungswissenschaft
Tel.: 089 21124 -559 / -568
E-mail: emmerling@tum.de
Source,
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/tum-bbo022511.php
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