Two great figures of Buddha in the Bamiyan valley northwest of Kabul date from the Kushan Dynasty; the larger is 53 m high and the smaller is 120 feet.

An online version of an exhibition at the Courtauld Institute of Art of photographs taken in 1934 by Robert Byron of the colossal Buddhas at Bamiyan. Includes history of the huge Buddhist monastery.

From BBC News, conservation experts meeting in Kabul to rescue Afghan cultural heritage decide Kabul Museum should be restored before the giant statues.

From IOL, Italian engineers have completed work to prevent the collapse of the cliff niches which house the remaining fragments of Afghanistan's ancient Bamiyan Buddhas which were destroyed by the Taliban

From Swissinfo, scientists from the Federal Institute for Technology in Zurich have prepared a three-dimensional blueprint for reconstructing the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan.

From the Indian Express, beneath a series of mounds lie clues to a civilization that flourished long before Islam embraced Afghanistan.