7 The site of the Bamiyan Buddhas on December 7, 1997. 8 An explosion rips apart one of the Buddhas in March 2001. 9 Taliban militants stand amid the rubble of the destroyed treasures on March 26 ...

One of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in 1997, before their destruction. Photo: Alamy Historian Amanda Foreman searches the past for the origins of today’s world. Read previous columns here.

Maitre had been to Afghanistan many times, but never to Bamiyan. From a hill, he admired the Buddhas, the wheat fields at their feet, and the Hindu Kush mountains behind them. The valley teemed ...

In Afghanistan, Taliban officials are calling for the preservation of the country's pre-Islamic heritage two decades after the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas. But skepticism remains about the ...

BAMIYAN, Afghanistan — The Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues in early 2001 shocked the world and highlighted their hard-line regime, toppled soon after in a U.S.-led invasion.

The Buddhas of Bamiyan were a pair of massive statues of robed figures, dubbed the Eastern Buddha and the Western Buddha, that once stood along the Silk Road, a network of trade routes that ...