奥马拉汗‧马苏迪对守护秘密很有一套。他是位于喀布尔的阿富汗国家博物馆馆长，就如同第二次世界大战期间把艺术品藏在乡间、以免它们落入纳粹手中的法国人民一般，当马苏迪和几个值得信任的守钥人看到他们的国家沦为人间地狱时，便将阿富汗的古代珍宝收藏了起来。先是苏联于1979年入侵阿富汗，接着大约十年之后，一场激烈的内战让大部分的喀布尔沦为废墟。在阿富汗军阀掀起漫天战端、争夺喀布尔的控制权时，士兵们 洗劫这座国家博物馆，把最上等的文物拿到黑市贩卖，还用博物馆的纪录文件来点燃营火。1994年，博物馆的建筑遭到炮击，屋顶和顶楼因而毁坏。最后一击出 现在2001年，一队队挥舞着榔头的塔利班狂热分子前来，把他们认为是偶像崇拜的艺术品砸毁。破坏殆尽之后，有超过2000件文物化为碎片。
Omara Khan Massoudi knows how to keep a secret. Massoudi is director of the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul. Like the French citizens during World War II who hid works of art in the countryside to prevent them from falling into Nazi hands, Massoudi and a few trusted tahilwidars - key holders - secretly packed away Afghanistan's ancient treasures when they saw their country descend into an earthly hell.
First came the Soviet invasion in 1979, followed about ten years later by a furious civil war that reduced much of Kabul to ruins. As Afghan warlords battled for control of the city, fighters pillaged the national museum, selling the choicest artifacts on the black market and using museum records to kindle campfires. In 1994 the building was shelled, destroying its roof and top floor. The final assault came in 2001, when teams of hammer-wielding Taliban zealots came to smash works of art they deemed idolatrous. When they finished, more than 2,000 artifacts lay in smithereens.
在那些黑暗的岁月中，马苏迪和其他几名博物馆人员对藏匿起来的博物馆文物守口如瓶，这其中有阿富汗最珍贵的宝藏——著名的大夏金器。1988年，苏联的占 领结束、内战继而爆发，马苏迪把这些金器藏在总统宫殿底下的地窖。世界各地的研究人员对于能否再见到这些珍宝已不抱希望，他们认为大夏金器已一件件被卖到 非法的古董市场，或是在塔利班最后的扫除偶像狂潮中摧毁。
Throughout those dark years, Massoudi and a handful of other museum officials kept quiet about the hoard of museum artifacts - among them the crown jewels of Afghanistan, the famed Bactrian gold - that they had hidden in vaults under the presidential palace in 1988, as the Soviet occupation gave way to civil war. Researchers the world over despaired of ever seeing the objects again, thinking they'd been sold piecemeal into the illicit antiquities trade or destroyed by the Taliban in their final, iconoclastic frenzy.
