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Article: Buried Treasures; Afghan artifacts that survived occupation, war and Islamic fundamentalists.
- Article from:
- Newsweek International
- Article date:
- December 18, 2006
- Author:
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Byline: Amber Haq
Pierre Cambon peers at the intricately carved second-century ivory statuettes, his eyes sparkling. The head curator of Afghan arts at Paris's historic Musee Guimet is contemplating the elegance of the sculpted female figures. "One cannot ignore the homage to femininity these represent," he says, keenly aware of the irony of their provenance. They were discovered in 1937 by Cambon's predecessor, the French archeologist Joseph Hackin, in Afghanistan, where women have since been forced to hide their feminine forms under burqas.
These figures are among the 220 remarkable artifacts that have survived the Soviet occupation, a civil war and ...