Exhibition of the week

Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures From the National Museum, Kabul

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Through Sept. 7

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These 230 artifacts from Afghanistan’s national museum have never been seen in America before, said Maria Puente in USA Today. In fact, until a few years ago, these bronze sculptures, “carved ivory reliefs, gold bowls, clay pottery, and painted glassware” weren’t even exhibited in Afghanistan. Originally discovered before the 1979 Soviet invasion, the two-millennium-old objects “were hidden away by culture officials and museum curators in sealed boxes” as bombs fell on Kabul. There they sat for a quarter century, safe from mullahs, soldiers, and potential bandits. Many archaeologists assumed that such valuable objects could not have survived the reign of the Taliban and the subsequent American-led invasion. “Fewer than two dozen men knew the secret, and kept it for decades, despite threats, even torture.”

It wasn’t until 2003 that Afghan President Hamid Karzai learned that the artifacts might be safe, said Neely Tucker in The Washington Post. The seals were “broken open with a hammer, crowbar, and finally a power saw.” There, wrapped in pink toilet paper, were more than 22,000 precious objects. They told the story of a thriving cultural crossroads that flourished more than two millenniums ago in the region, where traders from China mingled with Persians and Greeks. In the exhibition at the National Gallery, “a fish-shaped flask—made of glass, stunningly blue,” and probably Egyptian—sits nearby a golden crown tipped by five orbs. A statue of Aphrodite at first looks Greek, but has the wings of an Eastern deity and “an Indian forehead mark denoting marital status.”

“If gold is your thing, the show’s final galleries will be your idea of heaven,” said Roberta Smith in The New York Times. These contain artifacts from the so-called Bactrian Hoard, a huge trove of “extraordinary jewelry, weapons, coins, and clothing ornaments” unearthed in 1978. Other showstoppers include small but exquisite Begram ivories—full of “deeply carved” scenes of intricate detail—and a silver-and-gold plaque that may have traveled to the region with Alexander the Great. “Every work of ancient art is a survivor, a representative of untold numbers of similar artworks that perished.” This exhibition reminds us how unlikely such survival is.