Earlier this week, a story broke about a complex of caves found in the Upper Mustang region of Nepal, one of the most difficult places in Nepal to travel through, containing a treasure trove of art and artifacts dating to the 12th century and earlier, including a 55-panel mural of the life of Gautama Buddha.
The caves were rediscovered by a shepherd who took shelter in them during a storm. Word of these artifacts got to the right people, and a large team of archaeologists and art experts set out to climb the vertical cliffs to explore the caves. Details are pretty sketchy from the various news sources, and the location of the caves is being kept secret until it can be properly looted... er, preserved.
The man who discovered the caves didn't think much of his find at the time, and it really makes one stop and think about just how many lost relics and pieces of our collective human history are sitting out there, ignored and slowly disappearing to time. While I'm no fan of the sort of Father-Knows-Best "preservation" that the expeditionary British took it upon themselves to conduct - stealing statues from temples of the various places they conquered to fill their museums with the curios of the uncivilized world - it's far better than the alternative: tomb raiders.
Until the early nineties, the Mustang region had been entirely closed to foreigners, one of the only areas of Nepal that wasn't covered with touristas, empty water bottles, and - this writer would be so bold as to speculate - Maoist separatists. As more and more places once hidden, once forbidden to enter, are opened to the monied masses who fancy themselves Indiana Jones, one has to wonder how many of these lost relics disappear into places other than museums.
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