Carved into the sandstone cliffs of Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley, the Western Buddha stood 55 meters tall and the Eastern Buddha 38 meters. Their robes were modeled in mud, straw, and stucco over wooden pegs, the upper faces were likely wooden masks, and the larger figure was painted carmine red. Carbon dating of organic material exposed after 2001 dates the Eastern Buddha to 544 to 595 CE and the Western to 591 to 644 CE, when the valley was a wealthy Silk Road oasis ruled by the Hephthalites, or White Huns. The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang visited in April 630 CE and described thousands of monks, statues decorated with gold and jewels, and a reclining Buddha over a thousand feet long that has never been found.

The Taliban took Bamiyan in September 1998. A commander named Abdul Wahid began drilling into the statues’ heads, but Mullah Omar ordered them preserved in July 1999, then in early 2001 ordered all statues depicting humans destroyed, despite protests from the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Pakistan, and offers from India and Japan. Artillery, anti-tank mines, and explosives lowered by rope took almost a month. The blasts exposed 50 unknown caves, and in 2004 synchrotron analysis at the ESRF in Grenoble found walnut or poppy drying oils in mid 7th century murals, the oldest known oil paintings, predating Jan van Eyck by roughly six centuries.

• A ceiling mural pairing a Mithra-like sun god in a golden chariot with winged attendants in Corinthian helmets
• How the statues survived Genghis Khan’s forces in 1221 and Aurangzeb’s artillery in the 17th century
• Mullah Omar’s 2004 claim that he acted in anger over foreign restoration money during drought and sanctions
• UNESCO halting an ICOMOS team’s rebuilding of the smaller Buddha’s feet with iron rods, bricks, and concrete
• A Chinese couple’s 2015 projection of a 180 foot 3D image into the empty niche