The National Museum of Afghanistan (Persian: موزیم ملی افغانستان, Mūzīyam-e mellī-ye Afghānestān; Pashto: د افغانستان ملی موزیم, Də Afghānistān Millī Mūzīyəm), also known as the Kabul Museum, is a two-story building located 9 km southwest of the center of Kabul in Afghanistan. As of 2014, the museum is under major expansion according to international standards, with a larger size adjoining garden for visitors to relax and walk around.[1][2] The museum was once considered to be one of the world's finest.[3][4]
The museum's collection had earlier been one of the most important in Central Asia,[5] with over 100,000 items dating back several millennia, including items from Persian, Buddhist and Islamic dynasties. With the start of the civil war in 1992, the museum was looted numerous times and destroyed by rockets, resulting in a loss of 70% of the 100,000 objects on display.[6][7] Since 2007, a number of international organizations have helped to recover over 8,000 artifacts, the most recent being a limestone sculpture from Germany.[8] Approximately 843 artifacts were returned by the United Kingdom in 2012, including the famous 1st Century Begram ivories.[9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Museum_of_Afghanistan
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Ten years ago Rory Stewart visited the Kabul Museum, which was damaged by the Taliban in 2001. As the Taliban capture Kabul again, will the museum’s treasures survive? From the archive