[Buddha-l] Film about Mes Aynak

[Stuart Lachs]

Dear friends and colleagues,

The film "The Buddhas of Mes Aynak"
by film maker Brent E. Huffman was shown this past Tuesday at the Oslo Buddhist 
Studies Forum.
The film is at once breath taking and tragic in that this mostly un-excavated 
treasure trove of material 

may be destroyed if the Chinese begin their copper mining this June as is 
planned. 


The film maker, Brent Huffman in an attempt to generate more interest to save 
the site has released an hour and a half 

rough cut of his documentary. I was told it is available for the asking from the 
film maker: 

b-huffman at northwestern.edu .

Mes Aynak (meaning “little copper well”), a desert region 25 kilometers  
southeast of Kabul, is an enormous archaeological treasure trove 400,000  square 
feet in size. An ancient Buddhist monastery complex, extensive  wall frescos, 
massive devotional temples, and more than 200 life-sized  Buddha statues 
comprise a discovery of immense global importance. At the  same time, Mes Aynak 
is home to the largest undeveloped copper reserve  in the world.  Directly 
beneath the Buddhist site lie mineral deposits  worth an estimated $100 billion. 
The fate of the ancient Buddhist  artifacts hangs in the balance as the Chinese 
begin planning their  destructive open-pit style copper mine.

Under immense  international pressure, in early 2009 the Chinese company gave  
archaeologists three years to excavate and move the artifacts before the  copper 
mine gets underway. But with extremely limited resources, the  dedicated 
archaeologists have made little progress. “We have only  discovered the tip of 
the iceberg, a mere 10% of the site,” says French  specialist Philippe Marquis, 
who believes this could easily be a  thirty-year excavation project. The 
deadline was originally December  2012, but excavations are still going on. A 
probable deadline is later  this year.

Filmmaker Brent E. Huffman is a documentary filmmaker  and assistant professor 
at the Medill School of Journalism at  Northwestern University. He started this 
project in 2011 and the film is  currently in post-processing. But since it is 
important to spread this  message the film is already being screened in 
universities world wide. 


The film was introduced by professor of religious studies Jens  Braarvig from 
the University of Oslo, an expert on  early Afghan and Gandhari Buddhism who has 
worked extensively on  Buddhist manuscripts from this region.

All the best,

Stuart
...




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