Lost city at risk from Chinese miners
Almost 60 years ago, a French geologist seeking his fortune in copper chanced upon a lost city on a mountain range south of Kabul. While digging for samples above the village of Mes Aynak in 1963, he discovered evidence of a vast buried Buddhist metropolis, estimated to be 2000 years old and spread across 4km2 of barren rocks.
Mes Aynak, once a prosperous trading outpost on the Silk Road from China to Europe, is regarded as almost equal to Machu Picchu in Peru for the scale of its treasures.
However, as President Xi Jinping of China attempts to expand Beijing’s economic reach around the world, the remains are under threat.
Since 2007, when the state-backed China Metallurgical Group paid US$3 billion for mining rights, Beijing has been eyeing the estimated US$50b (NZ$78b) worth of copper buried at the site. No copper has so far been mined, and in 2014 Afghan officials began to question the viability of the deal.
Now, after the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban and the exodus of international investment, the authorities in Kabul are anxious for work to start. Muhammad Hassan Akhund, the country’s prime minister, has urged the authorities to ‘‘remove all obstacles’’ so that work can begin at last.
To reach the mineral reserves, a huge trench would have to be dug, destroying unexplored areas of the ancient complex of temples, homes,
markets and a fortress.
Archaeologists had explored Mes Aynak for a decade up to 2019, removing many artefacts, but the salaries of local workers were not paid by the government, and work ground to a halt.
‘‘Only a part of the site has been excavated,’’ said Philippe Marquis, director of the French Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan. ‘‘We suspect there are very important remains in the other parts.’’
Beijing is not the first foreign power to seek the fortunes buried at Mes Aynak. After the Soviet Union invaded in 1979, it tried to extract copper deposits at the site, digging a network of
tunnels in the barren landscape. Later, when the Taliban came to power, the tunnels were used by al Qaeda – the hijackers who would go on to attack the World Trade Centre stayed at Mes Aynak. During the American invasion in December 2001, United States special forces attacked the tunnels.
Today, Mes Aynak’s tunnels are used by Taliban guards to race their motorcycles as they while away the hours.
Marquis said mining could not begin until infrastructure such as roads, a railway and a power station were constructed at the site, as conditions of the 30-year mining lease.