Bamiyan buddha (AP Photo/File)
One-eyed Taliban leader Mohammed Omar has to be one sad mullah.
German scientists reported today they have a way to reconstruct the two giant Bamiyan Buddha statues he ordered dynamited in 2001.
Hundreds of fragments from the 1500-year-old wonders could be put back together, AFP reports.
The team sifting through the fragments said that with Japanese funding, a small factory could be built at Bamiyan valley or the 1,400 rocks and boulders could be hauled to Germany.
The ancient Buddhist center fell victim to radical clerics who at the height of the Taliban’s power ordered the destruction of all “un-Islamic” imagery, music, sports and technology.
A collection of international archeologists working the site since the Taliban’s removal from power have found caves and grottoes filled with Buddist murals and relics, much of it destroyed.
Another pair of Maalox moments for Afghanistan’s former TV smashers:
A treasure trove of relics rescued from the National Museum of Afghanistan are going on display in London.
Afghan poet, historian and archeology expert Mohammad Pervesh Shaheen tells the International Herald Tribune how he defied the extremists to preserve his 23,000-volume library.
Omar may have other problems. In January, the Washington Post carried a report–denied by Pakistan intelligence–that they took him to a Karachi hospital after he suffered a heart attack.
Bad karma, dude.
[via AFP, AP, International Herald Tribune, New York Times, Washington Post]
