Just how priceless Afghan gold was kept from warlords and the Taliban

A amazing tale of human ingenuity and bravery lies behind an exhibition of treasures from Afghanistan that opens with the British Museum this week.

In 17 decades of war after the 1989 Soviet withdrawal, and five decades of Taliban rule, nearly all of the Afghan national museum's riches were looted and a few were deliberately destroyed.

However the most useful items survived, in a very vault deep beneath the presidential palace, due to five males - between them museum director Omar Khan Massoudi.

"He kept his nerve throughout the Taliban's rule of Afghanistan and shown massive courage in not submitting to their demands and threats to reveal its place," says British Afghan expert and member of parliament Rory Stewart.

"It was an act of extraordinary courage and he done a wonderful company to his nation."

The Kabul national museum is located a few kilometres south from the money, in a place that repeatedly changed hands as mujahideen militias vied for impact from the early 1990s.

Every time it absolutely was used, the museum was looted once more. From the believed 100,000 object on exhibit in 1979, some 70% had gone through the mid-1990s.

A rocket destroyed a 4th Century wall painting in 1993. Priceless merchandise, some looted to purchase, changed hands on the international art market. Other individuals were buried in rubble or burned as firewood.

However the legendary Bactrian gold - which authorities feared had been stolen and melted down - had the truth is been packed up, together with several crucial objects from the assortment, and moved to a Central Financial institution vault from the Presidential Palace in 1989.

Mr Massoudi was one of five males who had keys to the vault. All five keys were required to open it - and every from the males risked their lives not to hand them about to the militants.

The holders from the keys kept their locations top secret - if a crucial holder died, it absolutely was agreed, the main element would be passed on to the keeper's eldest kid.

In that way, the priceless artefacts were preserved.

"Mr Massoudi and his staff are undoubtedly unsung heroes," says exhibition undertaking curator Constance Wyndham.

"Without his initiative its hugely unlikely this wonderful assortment would be all around today."

Ms Wyndham says the Soviet-backed President Mohammad Najibullah, whose federal government fell in 1992, also played a position, even though it stays unclear precisely how closely he was involved.

"All that we do know is always that the choice was produced by a committee and President Najibullah ordered the objects to get moved to the presidential palace," she said.

After the ingenuity from the rescue arrived the bravery which was necessary to help keep the hoard protected.

Mr Massoudi and his staff have from the intervening decades remained modest - and somewhat reticent - about their achievement.

But his comments from the museum's guidebook give some thought from the hazards of maintaining the treasure protected from "terror, violence, civil war along with the Taliban".

Regardless of currently being subjected to numerous threats through the Taliban - typically at gunpoint - people who knew from the top secret place gave absolutely nothing away.

It had been not till 2003 the store of 22,000 gold and glass objects were unveiled.

"Today with the grace of Allah Almighty, we've got succeeded in viewing the central treasure of Afghanistan," President Hamid Karzai declared.