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A stunning photo of one of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, before destruction ....
Buddhas of Bamiyan were two 6th Century AD, monumental statues of Gautama Buddha carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley of central Afghanistan, 130km northwest of Kabul at an elevation of 2500m. Carbon dating of the structural components of the Buddhas has determined that the smaller 38m "Eastern Buddha" was built around 570 AD, and the larger 55m "Western Buddha" was built around 618 AD.
The statues represented a later evolution of the classic blended style of Gandhara art. The statues consisted of the male Salsal ("light shines through the universe") and the (smaller) female Shamama ("Queen Mother"), as they were called by the locals. The main bodies were hewn directly from the sandstone cliffs, but details were modeled in mud mixed with straw, coated with stucco. This coating, practically all of which wore away long ago, was painted to enhance the expressions of the faces, hands, and folds of the robes; the larger one was painted carmine red and the smaller one was painted multiple colors. The lower parts of the statues' arms were constructed from the same mud-straw mix supported on wooden armatures. It is believed that the upper parts of their faces were made from great wooden masks or casts. The rows of holes that can be seen in photographs held wooden pegs that stabilized the outer stucco.
Buddhas are surrounded by numerous caves and surfaces decorated with paintings. It is thought that period of florescence was from the 6th-8th Century AD, until the onset of Islamic invasions. These works of art are considered as an artistic synthesis of Buddhist art and Gupta art from India, with influences from Sasanian Empire and Byzantine Empire, as well as country of Tokharistan.
The statues were blown up and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban.
#archaeohistories
An entire generation of Afghan girls have had their aspirations suspended by policies systematically excluding them from education and public life. https://t.co/uIuG34jtBP
One of the earliest depictions of eyeglasses in Islamic world: Portraits of the Persian painter Mir Mussavir from Badakhshan by his son Mir Sayyid Ali (left from 1585, right from 1565-70) painted in India.
Glasses were most likely introduced in the region by Italian merchants.
This girl found out that the Albanian island that the Kushner’s are buying is registered in Amsterdam by Zvernic South Adriatic Development & it’s owned through a chain of Dutch Shell Companies & it’s managed by a trust office.They’re really trying to hide the owners names well.
Strait of Hormuz closure hits Afghanistan's trade and aid | AP News
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We too often forget that India, Pakistan and Afghanistan were all more central to the Hellenistic world than Britain, Germany, or indeed the United States.
Selling children to survive: Afghan fathers forced to make impossible choices
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William Dalrymple - Scottish historian
“I thought the Romans came up with the word ‘Palestine’, but in fact Palestine is as old as literacy itself. In Egyptian form it appears as ‘Peleset’; the Assyrians refer to it; and Herodotus, the father of history, also speaks of Palestine
“In wrenching interviews, Palestinians have recounted to me a pattern of widespread Israeli sexual violence against men, women and even children,” our columnist Nicholas Kristof writes.
https://t.co/Q1DYudXMfc
Afghanistan: More than 13.8 million people now face acute food insecurity, while nearly five million children and pregnant or breastfeeding women are malnourished.
This and other stories in the World News in Brief ⤵️
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