BAGHLAN PROVINCE AFGHANISTAN
Ancient art recovered
An ancient sculpture has been recovered, three decades after it was
stolen from a Kabul museum. The limestone sculpture of two bulls,
carved in the second century AD when Afghanistan was part of the
Kushan empire, was discovered during excavations in the 1950s at
the archaeological site of Surkh Kotal. It was then looted from the
National Museum of Afghanistan during the 1990s civil war. A British
auction house recognised the item after the Art Loss Register reported
it to the Metropolitan Police in 2019. The sculpture is on temporary
display in the British Museum but will soon be returned to Kabul.415576An 1,800-year-
old limestone
sculpture of two
bulls, looted from
Kabul in the
1990s and
recently
recovered by
London policeAn aerial view of the
Pulemelei Mound in the
Samoan jungle, one of a
number of star-shaped
platforms in the areaSHAANXI CHINA
Expanding army
A further 200 terracotta warriors
have been uncovered during ongoing
excavations of burial pits in China’s
Shaanxi province. As many as 8,
figures were buried in 210 BC to protec t
emperor Qin Shi Huang in the afterlife; the
first were rediscovered in 1974 near Xi’an.
The newly unearthed statues represent
soldiers from five military ranks, one
of which has never before been seen.SAVAI’I SAMOA
Population plus
Laser-mapping studies of a Samoan jungle suggest
the area’s population may have been bigger than
previously thought. Experts surveyed the land around
the Pulemelei Mound, dating from 1100–1400 and
largest of around 80 star-shaped platforms in the
area. The study revealed that the eight-pointed mound
was part of a much bigger network of settlements and
other star mounds now covered by dense jungle.76BI
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