In 2001 the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan, two of the world's tallest Buddha statues, which had stood at the crossroads of Asia for more than 1,400 years. The event was a poignant example of the dynamic relationship between archaeological heritage and politics. In the aftermath, the international community largely attributed the event to a growing trend of heritage destruction (i.e., Bahadur 2002; Bryant 2002) perpetrated by religious fundamentalists across South Asia (i.e., Chakrabarti 2003; Coningham and Lewer 1999; Ratnagar 2004). Others placed the event within a continuance of Islamic iconoclasm, extending back to the medieval period, across the broader Muslim world. From 2014, the Bamiyan Buddhas’ destruction was reinterpreted as a harbinger for Da’esh's iconoclastic destruction of archaeological sites across the Middle East (Williams 2015).

While the destruction of the Buddha statues linked the threats posed by religious fundamentalism to eastern and western neighbours, within Afghanistan it also underscored the relationship between the country's archaeology, nationalism and politics. Since Afghanistan's “independence” in the early twentieth century, successive political leaders have attempted to build a nation from a deeply divided society, and one of the most valuable resources available has been the ancient archaeological heritage. While numerous studies have revealed the politicization of archaeological heritage in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries across the Middle East and South Asia (i.e., Goode 2007; Meskell 1997; Silberman 1989), none have fully delved into the twentieth-century historical backdrop that shaped the events of 2001 in Afghanistan. Moving beyond the typically generalized treatment of the Taliban and their destruction of the Buddhas (for a discussion, see Bernbeck 2010, p. 30), this paper aims to place the events of 2001 in the context of the formation and development of nationalism and the archaeological discipline in Afghanistan since the country's “independence” in 1919. Using the iconic case of Bamiyan, this paper will reveal how key actors, including foreign archaeologists, conservative religious groups and Afghan political administrations, shaped the politicization of archaeology in the modern Afghan nation-state.