Afghanistan national museum reopens for visitors

By Xinhua Published: Dec 11, 2021 08:05 PM

Photo taken on Dec. 1, 2021 shows artifacts at Afghanistan's national museum in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan. Afghanistan's national museum after experiencing ups and downs has finally been reopened for visitors from home and abroad to introduce the country's history and civilizations, Director of the museum Mohammad Rahim Rahimi said.Photo:Xinhua

Afghanistan's national museum after experiencing ups and downs has finally been reopened for visitors from home and abroad to introduce the country's history and civilizations, Director of the museum Mohammad Rahim Rahimi said.

The war-weary Afghans witnessed a political transition as the Taliban took over the capital Kabul on Aug. 15 and announced the formation of a caretaker government on Sept. 7.

Once a popular museum in the region for preserving rich cultural heritage from different eras and ancient civilizations, the Afghan national museum was badly damaged as many of its collections had been looted during the factional fighting in the 1990s.

"Luckily nothing has been stolen and nothing has been damaged during the political change and we have managed to preserve everything during these three months," the official said.

"We have kept the national museum since the collapse of the previous government. We have kept it closed because of security reasons and the safety of the collections. We have provided better security, besides protection of the cultural heritage," the director of the museum told Xinhua in his office recently.

Although the door of the museum is open for visitors nowadays, the number of visitors is still limited as many are unaware about reopening the museum, the entity's director assumed.

"It just freshly opened three or four days ago, we don't have a lot of foreign visitors, but local people we have, we are very happy to come here to visit," Rahimi muttered, adding that more visitors are expected to come later.

Objects representing civilizations from the Koshan empire to Greeks and Buddhism eras have been preserved in the Afghanistan national museum.

Nevertheless, Rahimi said that only 5 percent of the collection is on display nowadays, for a few months, and there are plans to rotate that for exhibition.

Rahimi, however, did not furnish details about the museum's monthly or annual income or the number of foreign tourists expected to visit it in the future.

Over two dozen Afghans were visiting the museum on Dec. 9 and one of the visitors Mohammad Nabi, 39, in talks with Xinhua described his visit as just passing time and getting knowledge about Afghanistan's past civilization.

In the meantime, Rahimi expressed gratitude to the proposal from the director of China's Palace Museum for the protection of cultural heritage in Afghanistan.

We are thinking about how to have more cultural cooperation and have support from our Chinese partners on the protection of the cultural heritage, Rahimi said.
Photo taken on Dec. 1, 2021 shows artifacts at Afghanistan's national museum in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan. Afghanistan's national museum after experiencing ups and downs has finally been reopened for visitors from home and abroad to introduce the country's history and civilizations, Director of the museum Mohammad Rahim Rahimi said.Photo:Xinhua