Saving Mes Aynak

Mes Aynak (“little copper well” in Pashto) is a mountainous site in the Taliban-controlled Logar Province, Afghanistan, 25 miles southeast of Kabul near the Pakistan border. Mes Aynak contains the ancient remains of a 2,000-year-old Buddhist city, on top of a 5,000-year-old Bronze Age site. Massive, at nearly 500,000 sq. metres, this historic Buddhist city contains dozens of unique and never-before-seen stupas and temples, thousands of artefacts, and around 600 large Buddha statues – similar to those destroyed by the Taliban in 2001 at Bamiyan.

Rewriting the history of Buddhism

Although only 10% of the site has been excavated, the discoveries are already rewriting the history of Buddhism, Afghanistan, and us – who we are as human beings. Just imagine what is still there, waiting to be re-discovered and shared with the world.

Mes Aynak, however, sits on the second largest copper deposit in the world. More on the story
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Reference:

Past Horizons. 2015. “Saving Mes Aynak”. Past Horizons. Posted: May 5, 2015. Available online: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/05/2015/saving-mes-aynak