Bamiyan

Bamyan is the capital of Bamyan Province and the largest town in Hazarajat, central Afghanistan. It has a population of about 61,863 people, and is approximately 240 kilometres north-west of Kabul. It is famous for the ancient part of the town, where the Buddhas of Bamyan stood for almost two millennia until dynamited by the Taliban in 2001. Recently Bamyan was accredited as home to the world's oldest oil paintings.

The city of Bamyan was part of the buddhist Kushan Empire in the early centuries of the Christian era. After the Kushan Empire fell to the Sassanids, Bamyan became part of the Kushansha vassals to the Sassanids. The Hephthalites conquered Bamyan in the 5th century. After their Khanate was destroyed by the Sassanids and Turks in 565 AD, Bamyan became the capital of a small Kushano-Hephthalite kingdom that lasted until it was conquered by the Saffarids in 870 AD. The area was conquered by the Ghaznavids in the 11th century AD.

For decades Bamyan has been the centre of fighting between zealous Muslim Taliban forces and the anti-Taliban alliance – mainly Hizb-i-Wahdat – preceded by the clashes between the warlords of the local militia.

On the face of a mountain near the city, three colossal statues were carved 4,000 feet apart. One of them was 175 feet (53 m) high, the world's tallest standing statue of Buddha. The ancient statue was carved during the Kushan period in the fifth century. The statues were destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001, on the basis that they were un-Islamic.