About the Museum

The National Museum of Afghanistan (Dari: موزیم ملی افغانستان, Mūzīyam-e Millī-ye Afghānistān; Pashto: د افغانستان ملی موزیم, Də Afghānistān Millī Mūzīyəm) is located across the small street from the Darul Aman Palace in the Darulaman area of Kabul, Afghanistan. It was once considered to be one of the world's finest museums. There have been reports about expanding the museum or building a new larger one. Mohammad Zubair Abedi serves as the current director of the museum. The museum's collection had earlier been one of the most important in Central Asia, with over 100,000 items dating back several millennia, including items from Persian, Buddhist, and Islamic dynasties. With the start of the civil war in 1992, the museum was looted numerous times and destroyed by rockets, resulting in a loss of 70% of the 100,000 objects on display. Since 2007, a number of international organizations have helped to recover over 8,000 artifacts, the most recent being a limestone sculpture from Germany. Approximately 843 artifacts were returned by the United Kingdom in 2012, including the famous 1st Century Begram ivories.