Buried Treasures

All around us people are milling, looking into glass boxes and calmly moving onto the next exhibit. I, however, do not feel calm and am anxious to contain the children so I try to separate the boys from the girls.

“Come with me boys and we’ll have a look over here” I say but L. insists on following us and interrupting our conversation. I continue undeterred.

“You see boys, it was thought to have been destroyed, looted or simply lost. Everyone knew that the Russians, and before them the French, had excavated the gold but what happened next…no one knew. That is until it was rediscovered, only three years ago, buried beneath piles of cash in the vaults of the Presidential Palace…”

“I’m thirsty” J. tells me looking at me as though I’m boring him to death. I’m deflated.

“Hey, I’m giving you a tale worthy of an Oscar winning Stephen Spielberg movie … and your only response is …I’m thirsty.”

At the tender age of ten I made my first appearance on stage. December 1980: annual Brigidine Convent Panto, Mothergoose, where we sang and danced to the tune of:

“Kids what’s the matter with kids today.
Why can’t they be like we were.
Perfect in everyway.
What’s the matter with kids today.”

At ten I loved that song. A real thumb’s up to boring adults. Now I identify with it. In the exhibition hall a flat-screen TV displays moving graphic images of what the city of Tillia-Tepe would have looked liked 2000 years ago. The computer images contrast with the enlarged black and white photos of the city, as found by the archaeologists in the 1930’s. In the photos a few pillars remain standing but the overall impression is one of a flat, desolate, landscape with all but the foundations of buildings visible.

“Look J. and Mitchell.” I continue. “Look at the difference between the computer graphics and what the archaeologists found. Who destroyed the city? Why was it abandoned like that? Who were the last people to have inhabited this place? Who made this gold and why? What was it they believed in?”

Mitchell joins in.

“Was it war Aunty K?”

“Yes, probably but it could also have been earthquakes – or perhaps a plague afflicted the city and with so much death it became taboo for anyone to settle there for thousands of years and so it was abandoned.”

I’ve already lost J. though and he has marched off to G. to complain that he is “bored” of queuing and when are we going home? In some respects I can’t blame him. We begin to queue for the fourth time that day – just to see the twenty boxes containing the much trumpeted Afghan Gold.

We had set off from the middle at 8.30 that morning. G. and I congratulated ourselves on being so well organised and being able to leave on time. It’s a three hour drive to Paris and with R. safely left behind with Tante Heleen, we headed off to the big city with not a single buggy or bottle or dummy or pamper bag in sight. In R.’s place we had Marjoleine and Mitchell. The banter in the back of the car was cheery – the kids were excited and really looking forward to the trip. Especially Jakob since he was very nearly left behind …but we won’t go into that.

The BBC on-line weather report promised sunshine. It rained all day. No matter. The 16^th arrondisement is splendid whatever the weather and hey its better to spend a rainy Sunday in Paris than a rainy day back home looking out onto the muddy garden. We drove around the Arc de Triomphe and underneath the Eiffel Tower, eventually parking the car along the Seine so we could have our “winter” picnic in the car with a view across the river.

The atmosphere was still very cheery and we even managed to spill out of the car for a brief ten minute walk up to the nearest bridge – take a few snapshots and then head off to the musée Guimet. This being a Sunday, parking was a breeze and best of all it was free. We found a spot right next to the entrance. Everything was going swimmingly.

The gold promised to be stunning – but forget for a moment the glitter and the glitz of ancient golden artefacts with Greek and Sino influences. The tale behind the exhibition is spicy and no doubt accounts for a lot of the exhibition’s pulling power…and pull it does. The tale goes something like this…

….gold excavated in the 1930’s by French archaeologists who had special permission from an Afghan King ….gold which was later excavated by Russian archaeologists in the 1970’s and 1980’s…..thousands of pieces being hidden shortly before the departure of the Soviets and the arrival of the Mujahadin….seven keys held by seven people to protect the ancient gold from misguided religious destruction….Taliban attempts to blow up the collection and destroy it….the loss of the seven keys and the disappearance of the seven key-holders….the re-discovery of the loot by the Americans in 2003 in the vaults of the Presidential Palace in Kabul, hidden underneath stacks of cash….the Afghan Parliament giving permission for the gold to leave Afghan territory on condition that French warships guide it to Paris and back again…

The kids were all geared up and so were G. and I. A big poster above the entrance to the Museum promised the visitor a spectacular experience…but there is something about this Afghan gold that is obviously playing “hard to get”. Our quest required us to show great tenacity, patience and an ability to queue for a very long time with five kids from generation “I have a five minute concentration span”.

Queue 1: Begin 13.10. Not too bad all things considered. We had finished our picnic. Our tummies were pleasantly full and the half hour wait on the steps outside of the musée Guimet didn’t seem to take too long. Luckily the showers had passed and we weren’t getting wet. The kids ran around and managed to release a lot of energy.

Queue 2: Begin 13.40. We were just about to be let into the main entrance and buy our tickets when the glass door was firmly slammed shut in front of J.’s nose. After a further 40 minutes waiting in front of the glass door we were finally allowed into the warmth of the Museum entrance to buy the tickets (very cheap we only paid EUR 16 since the kids were for free) – but not into the exhibition.

Queue 3: Begin 14. 30 We took the opportunity to take the children to the WC. Then we began to queue again to get into the exhibition room. Not much room to run around here either and L. nearly managed to knock a large screen off the wall whilst waiting.

“How much longer do we have to wait?”
“I’m bored”.
“I’m hungry.”
“I’m thirsty.”
“I’m tired.”
“My feet are itching.”
“Can you carry me?”

After a further 40 minutes of queuing we managed to enter the first room of the exhibition which the kids, literally raced around. They had each been given wonderful little books, , explaining all about the gold with great quizzes to test their knowledge and to help point them towards exciting finds. Unfortunately it was all in French.

Queue 4: Begin 15. 20. A bit unexpected this one. We were in the exhibition room – surely we could now finally see the gold. Once inside, however, even the children calmed down and looked at the gold with renewed enthusiasm and excitement.

“What are these?” “Why are they so small?” “Where was it worn?” “Look at that dagger!” “Are those Roman soldiers?”.

The gold was indeed spectacular, wonderful and worth the wait. Beautiful, intricate and amazingly delicate it must have lit up a long-dead soul’s tomb for thousands of years before being excavated.

My favourite piece was a gold belt, which I think would have looked stunning worn on a piece of brown silk. Mitchell liked the look of some shoe buckles decorated with jade and having a Chinese influence; K.M. some earrings; G. a small figure of a ram; J. the jewel encrusted dagger (of course!); Mario a necklace and L. all the tiny pieces of gold that were sown onto the clothes of the entombed bodies. We all had to admit though that the crown, made up of delicate leaf-like flakes of gold, was the star attraction.

The mood in the car on the way home reminded me of school outings. The kids sang songs; flicked pieces of food at each other; bickered over books and held a “boys” v “girls” quiz. G. drove us back along the motorway through the streaming rain. Although the kids were noisy we decided that this kind of noise we could cope with. Toddler tantrums and wailing babies – well that’s so much harder to live with on a three hour drive back to the middle from Paris and so it is that we remain very grateful to Tante Heleen and Nonkel Nick who took over R. for the day – enabling us, intrepid parents, to view buried treasure.