But experts are divided on the value of rebuilding the artifacts, with some insisting it is more important to preserve the remains of the entire crumbling site. Archaeologists and restorers, mostly Afghan, German, Japanese and French, working in the Bamiyan Valley in central Afghanistan will meet today in Munich, Germany. It was the Buddhist history of the area that the Taliban wanted to erase in the name of Islam, when they blew the statues up in 2001. German restorers, in favour of reconstructing the statues, have already rebuilt the feet of the smaller Buddha, nearly ten metres long. “We have some fragments of the original Buddhas,” says Bert Praxenthaler, a Bavarian art historian who has worked in Bamiyan since 2003.

Source: Taipei Times December 02, 2016 16:04 UTC