25th Day

I visit the cave in which Japanese restorers are working. Four people in a cave 3x2m size. The cave are situated high in the cliff and only accessible by a scaffold that has been set up to reach the internal staircase carved into the cliff. In this cave the Japanes collegues together with Afghan collegueas from the National Museum Kabul work on the long term conservation of the remaining mural paintings in Bamiyan. Due to neglect and lack of maintainance most of the murals have been lost. The task of the collegues is to clean the surface of the paintings and to consolate loose edges so that they do not detach from the walls and fall down. The picture shows two seated monks in meditation in predominant red and blue colours. The right figure shows signs of intentional destruction destroying the previous face of the painting. This has been done probably long time ago when figural depictions of living beings and images showing previous religious have been destroyed in raids of iconoclasm in the 9th and 10th century.