The golden haul of Afghanistan: Priceless 2,000 year old collapsible crown ...

Daily Mail (UK) ^ | 7:29 PM on 30th November 2010 | Daily Mail Reporter

[Pan_Yan]

A gold crown - said to be one of the 'world's most beautiful and priceless objects' - is set to be the star attraction at a British Museum exhibition of treasures from Afghanistan. More than 200 objects, many of which were hidden away for 25 years, are being loaned from the National Museum of Afghanistan. The 'collapsible' crown was discovered by Soviet archaeologists in 1978 in an elite nomadic cemetery and has never been shown in Britain before. Other objects showing ancient Afghanistan's links through trade with other cultures include classical sculptures, gold ornaments and jewellery, carved ivory attached to imported Indian furniture and enamelled Roman glass.

Many of these items were hidden from the Soviet invasion in 1979 until 2004, after the fall of the Taliban and the election of Hamid Karzai as Afghan president. Several of the items were locked in unmarked safes under the Presidential Palace, with the keys thrown away or lost. British Museum Curator Dr St John Simpson said large areas of the National Museum in Kabul were gutted during the Afghan civil war while figural sculptures that could not be moved were targeted by the Taliban.

He said: 'Hiding the objects was a tremendous act of hindsight. It's a life-threatening decision to hide these things and continue hiding them.' He said of the objects going on display: 'Their value is incalculable. Most of these pieces are unique in terms of the impression they give about Afghanistan's relationship with the outside, ancient world.

[Pan_Yan]

Collapsible gold crown? Was it designed that way for storage, or for travel?

According to another article I read it belonged to nomatic princess, so it was indeed designed to be packed away for travel.

[worst-case scenario]

How glorious - they make me want to reexamine the earliest history of that part of the world (it’s so easy to get sucked into Egyptology and Greek history that one rarely ventures out into the other ares of the Near East.)

One thing is sure: it’s a lot easier to see them in London than to travel to Kabul.