Moscow: Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2014. 164 p., ill. ISBN 978-5-94375-165-3 "The link of time has broken up." A. I. Kroneberg's translation of Shakespeare's brilliant "Time is out of Joint" ("Time is incoherent") is immediately recalled when you read the book by the archaeologists-orientalists Gennady Andreevich Koshelenko, Rauf Magomedovich Munchaev and Vasif Abidovich Gaibov. The main message of the authors is to use the tragic example of Afghanistan during the civil war to remind readers "how fragile the past is, how easy it is to destroy the history of the people" (p. 162). The collective monograph consists of an introduction, three parts - "Discoveries", "Tragedy", "Problems" - and a conclusion. This is accompanied by a list of abbreviations. The book is richly illustrated with color photographs and diagrams of ancient settlements, dwellings, and temples. In the introduction, the authors define the task of the book- " to tell about the archeology of Afghanistan, about the monuments discovered here, about the people who made these discoveries. But it will also be a story about how monuments and works of art were destroyed in the fire of the civil war " (p. 7). With this statement of the problem, it is logical for the authors to recognize that their work is not a textbook on the archeology of Afghanistan. But, I must say right away, their work is the first detailed historiographical study of the country's archeology in Russian. The first part opens with chapter I, " Strange Beginnings." It tells about the activities of the English intelligence officer and archaeologist Charles Masson (real name-James Lewis), who is considered to be a pioneer of the archeology of Afghanistan. He undertook the first research of the Buddhist cave complex in Bamiyan, which included two colossal Buddha statues that were blown up by the Taliban in 2001, despite protests from the international community. I have collected a large collection of coins. He ... Читать далее