In the third year of Longan of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Fa Xian, a monk of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, traveled westward to seek Buddhism, and came to the Onion Mountain Range, where people are rarely seen.
Unlike the wailing gale over the Taklamakan Desert, the huge snow-capped mountains seemed like a mahatma hell that swallowed everything, making people forget the existence of Time and sound. Some people in the group even developed hysteria, occasionally hearing some desperate cries from the depths of their minds. But for the sake of the distant legendary Mahayana Buddhist classics, they still feverishly and mechanically stepped forward to the depths of the cave mountain.
Later in his book, the monk Fa Xian wrote: “There were no flying birds above, no walking animals below, and no way to measure the place in all directions, except for the sun to mark the east and west, and human bones to mark the way.
This death passage to Tianzhu is the Wakhan Corridor. The 400-kilometer-long Wakhan Corridor, the narrowest section is only 15 kilometers wide. About a quarter of it is in Xinjiang, China, and the rest belongs to the neighboring Afghanistan, which is connected to China but not to each other.
That is a country lying on a mountain of Gold.
Over many, many, many mountains
You can get to that country on the golden mountain
The ruins of a Buddhist temple on the other side of the plateau
(Photo from wikipedia@DidierTais)▼
A treasure buried deep in the earth
Afghanistan, connected to our country by a narrow Wakhan corridor, is located in the heart of Asia, a crossroads linking Central, West, South and East Asia, and the center of the intersection of Eastern and Western civilizations. It is Home to an enviable array of metal-based minerals.
If there is a place that you can differently
classify him as West Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, and leading to East Asia
that would be Afghanistan▼
These few words may seem insignificant, but their significance is amazing.
The Indian subcontinent and the Asian and European continental plates collided, and the collision formed the lofty and towering Himalayan Mountains, the Tibetan Plateau, the Pamir Mountains, and the Hindu Kush Mountains.
The Hindu Kush mountain range runs from northeast to southwest across Afghanistan, with a length of 1600 kilometers and a maximum width of 320 kilometers, occupying three quarters of the country’s territory.
As the major mountain that divides the north and south of Afghanistan
The Hindu Kush is both a barrier and a hope
(Bottom image from: NASA) ▼
Violent collisions and towering mountains mean violent stratigraphic inversions, and minerals hidden deep in the earth’s crust are often pushed out by the earth’s powerful energy and piled up on the surface. And again, the mineral density of Afghanistan’s mountains is one of the highest in the world’s mountains.
There are natural resources such as gold, silver, zinc and iron in the southeast and northeast of Afghanistan, and precious veins of lapis lazuli, emerald, turquoise and lapis lazuli in the northeast.
Let’s start with a piece of lapis lazuli
(Photo from: shutterstock)▼
As for copper, it is found all over the country. For example, the copper belt stretching from Kabul province, where the capital is located, to Logar province is one of the largest copper belts in the world. The copper belt stretches 110 kilometers and has estimated ore reserves of one billion tons.
Copper mines are also located in several regions of the country
The Kabul-Lugar province area is the most famous, such as the Enak copper mine
(Reference: Ministry of Mines and Petroleum of Afghanistan)▼
The Enak copper mine, located south of the capital Kabul, has proven reserves of 700 million tons of ore and 11.33 million tons of copper metal, and the ore is of such high quality that it attracted the former Soviet Union to explore and test-mine it for more than a decade.
Moreover, there are many historical relics left in the Buddhist era
There are also ancient copper smelting sites, so the development of copper has a long history.
(Photo from wikipedia@Jerome Starkey)▼
Afghanistan may also have the fifth largest iron ore vein in the world, with a world-class iron ore mine in the central province of Bamyan, with a total reserve of nearly two billion tons. However, most of the mine is located in a highland area at an altitude of 4,000 meters, making it extremely difficult to mine. The former Soviet Union had also planned to develop it, but eventually did not act on it.
Iron ore is very widely distributed
(Reference: Ministry of Mines and Petroleum of Afghanistan)▼
In addition, Afghanistan is rich in lithium, tin, tantalum, niobium, chromium, beryllium, lead, zinc, mercury, nickel and rare metals, none of which have been exploited on a large scale.
The only exception is gold mining.
Afghanistan has a number of gold mines, the most famous alluvial gold mine in Takhar province is about 8,000 meters long and 1,500 meters wide, with a total of about 70 million cubic meters of alluvial ore, containing 200-400 grams of gold per cubic meter. The mine has been mined for many years and is close to depletion.
Distribution of gold mines in Afghanistan and the northern province of Takhar
(Reference: Afghanistan Ministry of Mines and Petroleum)▼
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the estimated value of metal deposits in Afghanistan exceeds one trillion dollars.
The richness of the minerals, coupled with its choke point on the Eurasian continent, also brought a prosperous and wealthy civilization to the region in ancient Afghanistan.
Gold coins from Afghanistan during the Hellenistic period
(Image from: wikipedia)▼
Gold, lapis lazuli and black gold
Tirachudy, meaning “hill of gold,” is located in the city of Shiberghan in Jawzjan Province in northern Afghanistan. Originally a Bronze Age Zoroastrian shrine, a joint Soviet-Afghan archaeological team excavated six barrow tombs (one male and five female) in 1978, unearthing 21,618 beautiful artifacts made of gold, silver, copper, ivory, precious stones and other materials.
Tirachu is located at the lower reaches of one of the many rivers in northern Afghanistan
The Hindu Kush mountains to the north support many of these oasis cities
(Bottom image from: Google map)▼
In terms of geographical characteristics, the collection includes precious artifacts from different regions of the East and West, including silver coins of the Sabbath, Roman gold coins, Greek idols, Chinese Western Han bronze mirrors and silks, Syrian or Egyptian glassware, Indian ivory carvings, and steppe style gold jewelry.
They blend a variety of cultural traditions and artistic styles to paint a prosperous picture of the west of the West, and are one of the greatest archaeological discoveries on the Silk Road to date.
Gold belt excavated in Tirachudi
(Photo from:wikimedia)▼
A gold necklace embedded with precious stones unearthed from Tomb V
(Photo@Turbo-Creative)▼
The gold crown excavated from Tomb VI is one of the most exquisite and eye-catching relics unearthed, with hundreds of gold flakes of various shapes hanging from the main structure like leaves on the surface of the crown, creating a swaying effect with the slightest shaking, making it shine with gold and nobility. In addition to the crown, there are also a large number of gold jewelry and medieval objects buried with it. The gold symbolizes the nobility and immortality of the kingship, and rests in the ground with their masters.
The gold crown unearthed in Tomb No. 6
(Photo by: ic/Image Bug Creative) ▼
(Photo by: ic/Graphic Insect Creative)▼
Unfortunately, the kingship did not become immortal, and within just a century of the tomb owner’s burial, the Lunars became the owners of the land. The world heritage sites in Afghanistan, the treasures of human civilization, the ancient ruins of Begram and the Buddhas of Bamiyan were destroyed in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, respectively.
Before and after the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan
A civilizational nightmare
(Photo from: wikipedia@UNESCO/A Lezine)▼
But the gold ornaments are still proof that
While gold has its value, Afghanistan’s mineral wealth is better represented by their national stone, lapis lazuli. Lapis lazuli was an important mineral deposit in northeastern Afghanistan, and was one of the main exports from ancient Central Asia to the Middle East, Europe and China.
Given the level of chemistry in ancient times
Blue and purple were extremely scarce colors
Unique products that offered this color were expensive luxury items
(Photo from: shutterstock)▼
Afghan President Ashraf Jani, for one, said that the lapis lazuli route is about 4,000 years old.
This statement is true. A large number of artifacts made of lapis lazuli have been found in archaeological excavations in Mesopotamian and ancient Egyptian civilizations, when there was only one source of lapis lazuli origin, the mountains of Badakhshan province in northeastern Afghanistan today.
It was easy to transport from the Wakhan Corridor to China
(Bottom image from: NASA) ▼
Lapis lazuli was also found in ancient China, and was also known as chrysoberyl and lapis lazuli, according to “Erya – Interpretation of the Earth”: “The beauty of the northwest, there is a palladium of chrysoberyl and rangan.” The palladium here refers to northeastern Afghanistan, which is located at the northern end of the Karakorum Mountains.
Xinjiang, China and northeastern Afghanistan (to the west)
(Bottom image from: google map)▼
This precious gemstone has an important place in traditional Chinese Culture. The court dress of a fourth-ranking official in the Qing dynasty was topped with lapis lazuli, symbolizing the authority of the top bureaucrats in the empire and the favor of The Emperor, which shows how popular this beautiful jade, never before produced on Chinese soil, was in ancient China.
For the Chinese market, which was in great demand for stones
How can you go wrong with blue?
(Photo from: ic/Image Bug Creative) ▼
Poor people sleeping on a mountain of gold
Yet despite the enormous treasures sent by geological movements, Afghanistan today is one of the least developed countries in the world. The gross domestic product (GDP) is $20.2 billion and the GDP per capita is only $681.
Are you the breadwinner?
(Afghanistan – Herat)
(Photo from: Travel Stock)▼
The intervention of the outside world and the chaotic situation caused by internal struggles, which made it difficult for Afghanistan to effectively develop its valuable mining resources, are also among the reasons that cannot be ignored.
In the mid-18th century, Afghanistan gradually formed an independent country and established the Kingdom of Afghanistan in 1747, which was once strong. However, after the 19th century, with the coveting and expansion of Britain and Tsarist Russia, the central authority of the Afghan kingdom almost disintegrated and the fate of this country took an unpredictable path.
The Russians needed the warm shores of the Indian Ocean
The British needed to defend their Indian colonies
It was in this scramble that modern Afghanistan was shaped▼
Although Afghanistan, which won three Anglo-Afghan wars, gained its independence and later earned the name “Graveyard of Empires,” the disadvantage of a weak modern base persisted. This left Afghanistan to survive with its dangerous northern neighbor, the Soviet Union.
With Soviet support, in the 1960s the Afghan capital, Kabul, was still full of Soviet-made cars and merchants who trafficked goods by camel and other livestock. This was a good deal of money for an Asian country that was generally poor at the time.
Later, even tanks came to Kabul!
(Photo from: wikipedia)▼
But the Soviet Union’s friendliness was based on its lack of time to expand southward. By the 1970s, the Soviet Union had gained the upper hand in the U.S.-Soviet rivalry and centered its own expansion on the Middle East, Africa, and the South Asian subcontinent. Afghanistan, located at the crossroads of Asia, became a must.
The Soviet Union, with its absolute military superiority
could quickly take the major cities of Afghanistan
but was never able to control the vast mountainous and rural areas
(Bottom image from: NASA) ▼
After changing several proxies, the Soviet Union sent troops directly to invade Afghanistan in 1979, but with the support of the United States and other major powers, and the heroic resistance of the Afghans, the Soviet Union was never able to fully occupy Afghanistan, much less establish an effective mining system in the country, until it withdrew from the area in 1989.
Something left behind, and some ruins
(Photo from: wikipedia@Todd Huffman from Phoenix, AZ)▼
After the withdrawal of the former Soviet troops, various factions fought for power and Afghanistan was plunged into civil war. The rich mineral resources became a treasure trove for the armed forces to fight over. In Badakhshan province, which is rich in lapis lazuli, a group of illegal armed groups led by a former local police chief seized control of the lapis lazuli mining area from the government five years ago.
The problems faced by Badakhshan province are only a microcosm of the overall situation in Afghanistan, where thousands of mines are not under government control.
It is worth noting that the ethnic composition of Afghanistan is quite complex
and lacks an overwhelmingly dominant ethnic group
Badakhshan province is mainly a Tajik territory▼
In an environment of weak local government administration and widespread domestic corruption, the Taliban are increasingly the de facto beneficiaries of the mining industry. In parts of Badakhshan province, Taliban forces will require mine owners to hand over 40 percent of their monthly revenues from the mines.
Former UN Security Council Chairman-in-Office Gerard Posimen has stated that illegal mining continues to be an important revenue stream for the Taliban. By controlling illegal mining sites, the Taliban extorts amounts from licensed mining operations in Afghanistan and acts as a transporter of other illegally extracted natural resources.
Taliban forces remain present in mountainous and rural areas of Afghanistan today
Not just one in Badakhshan province
(Bottom image from: NASA)▼
Mining is also the Taliban’s second largest source of income after drugs. Afghan miners and mining communities have long been victims of resource conflicts.
Such a dire domestic situation has also kept international investment at bay. 2011 saw seven Indian companies acquire iron ore mining rights in central Afghanistan, and according to Hindu, in addition to mining, they plan to invest $10.8 billion in steel and power plants. But in the end, the iron ore mining didn’t go ahead, considering the security risks after the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
The mines are not yet cleared, and I don’t know who dares to mine…
(U.S. troops teach Afghans how to clear mines)
(Photo from: shutterstock)▼
Chinese capital was awarded the rights to the Aynak copper mine in Logar province, Afghanistan, touted as the second largest untapped copper mine in the world, more than a decade ago, but the project has been put on hold and postponed several times due to caution over the security situation and the U.S. emphasis on heritage protection, and has not been profitable to date.
Due to political and security uncertainties, Afghanistan’s attractiveness for international investment has declined significantly in recent years, and it is perhaps the country’s deepest sorrow that it has mines at home but cannot dig them.
But Afghans are still guarding the treasure that brought them bad luck, expecting that one day their fate will be rewritten.
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