KABUL - Officials at the national museum in Kabul said Wednesday that nearly 2,000 ancient relics from the Aynak copper mine in Logar province have not been transferred to the capital and are still being kept near the mine.
Afghanistan National Museum Director Mohammad Fahim Rahimi said some of these relics were supposed to have been brought to Kabul while others will remain in Logar and will be displayed at a new museum that is expected to be built there.
Meanwhile, the responsibility for preserving and recovering ancient relics around the Aynak copper mine has now become the responsibility of the Ministry of Information and Culture. Previously the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum had been responsible for the Aynak relics.
Dozens of Afghan officials from the ministries participated at handover ceremony in Mohammad Agha district of Logar province.
The program of preserving and recovering relics has been sponsored by the World Bank since 2009 and so far under this program more than 2,500 ancient artifacts have been transferred to Kabul Museum.
“These artifacts go back to the seventh and eighth centuries. This was from when the ancient Aynak copper site had an active Buddhist temple,” Rahimi said.
Nearly eight large archeological sites have been identified around the Aynak copper mine while smaller sites number in the hundreds.
Meanwhile, government agencies have also released statistics on tourism in Afghanistan.
“From 2012 up to 2015 more than 90,000 people visited the provinces in the country, especially Bamiyan province,” said Ramin Atiqzada head of the tourism department at the Ministry of Information and Culture.
Afghanistan’s income through tourism last year was said to be 25 million Afghanis.
This comes after President Ashraf Ghani said two days ago that Afghanistan has the ability to host five million foreign tourists in a year and stressed that tourism should be used against terrorism in the country. (Tolonews)