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Bruce G. Richardson has been a contributing columnist for the Afghanistan Mirror, Dawat, and the Afghan Post since 1990. He is the author of Afghanistan, Ending the Reign of Soviet Terror (1996-98 editions) and Afghanistan, A Search for Truth (2007, 2008 and 2009 editions). Under USIA auspices, he conducted photo workshops for the Afghan Media Project in 1986 and traveled as a freelance journalist to Afghanistan in 1986, 1987, 1990, 1991, and 1997.
Bruce Richardson raises an important issue regarding the protection, trafficking, and exploitation of cultural patrimony. Aspects of this issue range across research, polemics, and litigation in attempts to document loss, return treasures, or on the other hand prevent restitution or repatriation. Richardson properly decries cultural looting, but we must distinguish among causes to reach agreement on protective steps.
When Russian archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi excavated Tilya Tepe in 1978, 21,000 bejeweled, gold artifacts created during the Greco-Bactrian era known as The Golden Hoard of Bactria were reported as inventoried, photographed, and catalogued. But in consideration of the time (1978), and the fact that the Kremlin was considering military intervention in Afghanistan in support of the Communist regime, it seems prudent to challenge the veracity of Professor Sarianidi’s findings.
