Archaeology is slowly returning to Afghanistan, promising more discoveries and deeper knowledge. New sites are being excavated, and well-known ones are being mapped for reexploration. In the past, American or European researchers played key roles; these days, Afghan archaeologists often lead projects on their own.

On a steep hillside outside Kabul, at a well-preserved Buddhist site from about A.D. 400 called Tepe Maranjan, Afghan researchers found the remains of 16 clay bodhisattvas arranged in a circle. Only their feet and the bottom of their robes were intact, and the Buddha statue they'd once surrounded was gone, probably demolished in the first Islamic invasions a few centuries later. Also gone, except for its bare feet, was a 20-foot-tall upright Buddha that had towered over the site, beckoning the monks to prayer. Perched on an arid hilltop, overlooking the plains where today the city of Kabul stands, the site gives a rich sense of the Buddhist ideals of quiet contemplation and remove.

"If this had been discovered during the Taliban's day, it might well have been destroyed," says archaeologist Najib Sedeqi. A few guards keep a close eye on the site with cooperation from neighbors.

Every period in the country's history is opening up to exploration. Afghan and French archaeologists will soon start excavating one of the oldest known mosques in Afghanistan, the No Gonbad ("nine domes"), which stands outside Balkh amid fields of flourishing marijuana plants. With its mighty columns and thick walls, now half-buried in soil and debris, the mosque expresses power and permanence. When Islam came to Afghanistan, it clearly came to stay.

Despite the progress, huge challenges remain. Crime, looting, and the threat posed by Taliban insurgents could snuff out Afghanistan's nascent cultural revival at any moment. At Tillya Tepe villagers looking for antiquities and building material have practically leveled the "golden hill." At Ai Khanum, where Alexander the Great built a city on the banks of the Amu Darya, archaeologists found baths, Hellenic lettering, and other traces of an outpost of Greek culture on the doorstep of China. Since then, unemployed fighters for local warlords have started to pillage the site, turning it into a lunar landscape of pits and tunnels. At Begram, looters who were once moonlight scavengers have become bolder and better equipped.