British Museum Returns Buddhist Relics

[British Museum returns Buddhist relics] According to the Guardian, the British Museum released details on the return of a batch of 4th century Buddhist heads smuggled from Afghanistan on 8 July. It is reported that these Buddhist heads are related to the illegal looting of cultural relics in Afghanistan and Iraq by members of the Taliban.
In 2002, British police intercepted a plane from Peshawar, Pakistan, at Heathrow Airport in London. Nine statues and a statue trunk were found in the simple wooden box of the plane. Since London has long been the centre of a booming black market in which ancient art was illegally traded, these relics are presumed to have been planned to be sold on the black market. After a lengthy legal process, they were sent to the British Museum for analysis, preservation and Cataloguing in 2018.
Saint John Simpson, curator of the British Museum, said that the heads should have been colorful and had corresponding trunks. It is speculated that they should have been sculptures on the walls of Buddhist monasteries in the Kingdom of Jadhara 1500 years ago.
Simpson analysis, these Buddhist heads may be related to the Taliban announced in early 2001 to destroy all non-Muslim religious sculptures in the territory. During that period, the Taliban blew up two statues of Bamiyan Buddha built in the 6th century A.D., triggering protests from the international community. This batch of Buddhist heads may have been cut down by the Taliban.
"Over the years, we have returned thousands of cultural relics to Afghanistan, but this is the first time we have returned Buddhist relics," Simpson said. He said that the return of any items illegally trafficked would be of great symbolic significance, and that these cultural relics would be one of the largest returns to the Afghan Museum.
The artifacts will be on display at the British Museum for a period of time before being handed over to officials of the Afghan Embassy in London and eventually in Kabul, Afghanistan.