Entangled Histories: The Bamiyan Buddhas—Past, Present, and Future

Western scholarship has focused on the monumental sculptures in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley as Buddhas created in the late sixth and early seventh centuries. This lecture tells an alternative story based on Islamic sources from the tenth to the twentieth century, which saw these sculptures not as Buddhas but as legendary heroes representing the mythic conversion of the Bamiyan Valley to Islam. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Taliban destroyed the sculptures—as Buddhas. After the fall of the Taliban, the sculptures’ entangled histories and the viewpoints of multiple stakeholders posed challenges for the global debate on how best to memorialize the destroyed images. Now that the Taliban has again taken power, the question is: what is Bamiyan’s future?

Speakers:
Deborah Klimburg-Salter, University Professor of Art History, emerita, University of Vienna, Austria, and Associate, Department of South Asian Studies, Harvard University

Masanori Nagaoka, Programme Specialist for Culture, UNESCO Office in Cambodia

This talk will take place online via Zoom. Free admission, but registration is required. To register, please complete this online form.

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Support for the lecture is provided by the M. Victor Leventritt Fund, which was established through the generosity of the wife, children, and friends of the late M. Victor Leventritt, Harvard Class of 1935. The purpose of the fund is to present outstanding scholars of the history and theory of art to the Harvard and Greater Boston communities.

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