Our heritage is already broken: meditations on a regenerative conservation for cultural and natural heritage

Abstract

In 2001, several months before the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the Taliban regime ordered the destruction of all “shrines of infidels” (Manhart, 2009, p. 38), including two colossal 6th–7th century CE statues of the Buddha carved into cliff faces in central Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley during this region’s heyday as a Silk Road hub. The demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas (Figure 1), executed with mortar fire and dynamite and filmed by the Taliban, incited international shock and outrage. How could this destruction have been allowed to happen to such an invaluable historical treasure? These statues had existed for more than 1,400 years and now, in the space of a few weeks, were all but completely erased. In 2003, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) responded by designating the cultural landscape and archaeological remains of the Bamiyan Valley as a World Heritage site and adding them to the World Heritage in Danger List, thereby authorizing their “Outstanding Universal Value” and need for protection (UNESCO, n.d.). Since then, experts have journeyed to Bamiyan to conduct archaeological excavations and shore up