German scientists say it may be possible to reconstruct one of two giant 1,500-year-old Buddha statues dynamited by the Taliban in central Afghanistan 10 years ago. Their destruction prompted a worldwide outcry and left behind only towering cliff caverns.
Researchers have studied several hundred fragments of the sandstone statues that once towered up to 180 feet (55m) high in Bamiyan province, and found that they were once brightly coloured in red, white and blue, said Erwin Emmerling of Munich's Technical University.
The professor of restoration and conservation science, who has visited the Unesco world heritage site about 15 times since 2007, says research has shown that the smaller of the pair – some 125 feet high – could be reconstructed using the recovered parts, even though there are some "political and practical obstacles" to overcome.
"Conservation of the fragments would require the construction of a small factory in the Bamiyan Valley – alternatively some 1,400 rocks weighing up to two tonnes each would have to be transported to Germany," the university said.
Emmerling is to present the findings at a Unesco conference on the Buddha statues' future starting on Wednesday in Paris. The Afghan government, whose representatives will attend the expert meeting, will ultimately decide on the statues' fate. The Taliban destroyed the towering Buddha statues in March 2001, less than a year before international forces toppled their government.
The Bamiyan Valley, about 260 kilometres (160 miles) west of Kabul at an altitude of some 8,000 feet, once formed a branch of the Silk Road, which contributed to the diffusion of Buddhism from India to the region.
Emmerling's team says mass spectrometer tests have allowed them to better determine the statues' age. Organic material in the fragments' clay layers were found to date from between 544 and 595 for the smaller Buddha and between 591 and 644 for the bigger one.
The fragile sandstone fragments of the statues are currently either covered on the site or stored in a warehouse in Bamiyan province, awaiting the Afghan government's decision.