[MSN] What happened to 22, 000 pieces of gold - jewel-encrusted crowns, daggers and baubles from an ancient burial mound - that had apparently vanished from Afghanistan in the 1980s?

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Masterpieces treasured more than life itself 
 
ANGELA DOLAND December 13 2006 
 
It is a mystery that combines the Da Vinci Code with Indiana Jones and has
baffled archaeologists for more than two decades. Its keepers have withstood
torture rather than give up its secrets. What happened to 22,000 pieces of
gold - jewel-encrusted crowns, daggers and baubles from an ancient burial
mound - that had apparently vanished from Afghanistan in the 1980s?

With Afghanistan mired in wars and general chaos, rumours swirled. Had the
2000-year-old gold treasure trove been spirited away from the Afghan
National Museum to Russia, or sold on the black market, or melted down?
Many assumed it was gone forever, yet another cultural loss for a country
that had become accustomed to them. Yet the Bactrian gold, as it is known,
goes on display this month at Paris's Guimet Museum.
The treasure, and a host of other masterpieces, had been saved by a
mysterious group of Afghans who kept them hidden underground, at great
personal risk. The group was known as the "key holders", because they held
the keys to the basement vault on the grounds of the presidential palace
where the gold and other museum treasures were hidden during troubled times.
The major threat came from the Taliban regime, which, in 2001, destroyed
much of the country's pre-Islamic art in the belief it was idolatrous or
offensive to Islam. This culminated with the dynamiting of two giant Buddhas
carved into the side of a cliff. 
The Taliban is believed to have tortured a security guard who refused to
give up secrets. 
The regime also purportedly tried to crack the lock with a diamond-tipped
drill-bit.
Yet there were other dangers. The key holders are believed to have hidden
the treasures sometime after the 1979 Soviet invasion, keeping quiet
throughout the civil war of the 1990s and the period of Taliban rule that
preceded the US-led invasion in 2001.
"Over the last 20 to 25 years, during food shortages and money crises, this
handful of people . could have sold these collections instead of going
hungry, but they never once sacrificed their own cultural heritage," says
Fredrik Hiebert, an archaeologist with the National Geographic Society.
The identity of the key holders is still not public knowledge, and it is not
even clear how many there were. Some believe there was only one key holder,
though legend says otherwise. Stories about the treasure must be taken with
caution. "The Afghans are adept at the art of secrets, and really know how
to create a mystery," says Christian Manhart, a specialist on Afghanistan
with Unesco, the United Nations' cultural body. "Every time you ask, you
hear a different story."
The mystery of the treasure's whereabouts began unraveling in 2003, when
President Hamid Karzai announced boxes from the National Museum had been
found in a vault, along with bank reserves of gold bars. Hiebert was asked
to make an inventory of the pieces.
He was in for a huge surprise.
The key holders had not only saved the Bactrian gold but many of the
National Museum's most valuable treasures as well, protecting them from the
rocket-fire, looting and Taliban rampages that destroyed 70% of art there.
"We found glass, bronze and wonderful ivory," says Hiebert. "The boxes were
not very well labelled and every time we opened one, nobody knew what was
going to come out of it. 
"There were gasps and sighs, and it was very emotional."
 
www.guimet.fr