National Museum of Afghanistan

The National Museum of Afghanistan (Persian: موزیم ملی افغانستان, Muzem-e milli-ye Afghanistan), also known as the Afghan National Museum or the Kabul Museum, is a two-story building located 9 km southwest of the center of Kabul City in Afghanistan. It was built in 1922 during the reign of King Amanullah Khan. The collection inside the museum was transfered from another location in the city and began as a 'Cabinet of Curiosities' in 1919. In 1973, a Danish Architect was hired to design a new building for the museum, but the plans were never carried out due to political instability.

Its collection had earlier been one of the most important in Central Asia, with over 100,000 items dating back several millennia. After the collapse of President Najibullah's government and during the start of the civil war in the early 1990s, the museum was looted numerous times resulting in a loss of 70% of the 100,000 objects on display. In 1989, the Bactrian Gold was moved to an underground vault at the Central Bank of Afghanistan.

In March 1994, the museum, which had been used as a military base, was struck by rocket fire and largely destroyed. The Ministry of Information and Culture of President Rabbani's government ordered that the 71 museum staff begin moving the inventory to Kabul Hotel in order to rescue them from further rocketing and shelling. In September 1996, staff at the museum completed the cataloging of the remaining materials. Between 2003 and 2006, about $350,000 were spent to refurbish the building. Fortunately, many of the most precious objects had been sealed in metal boxes and removed for safety and were recovered and inventoried in 2004. Some archeological objects were found in vaults in Kabul, while a collection was also discovered in Switzerland. (wikipedia, 2011-11-17)