The most famous Kushan Emperor, Kanishka the Great, was a great patron of Buddhism.
The 175 feet high Buddha statue in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, destroyed in 2001.
Islam becoming the state religion and Buddhism vanished.
Decades of war have turned to rubble many important archeological sites and museum collections were either looted or destroyed.
The Bamiyan area was a prominent center of Buddhism.
Historians believe that the monumental Buddha sculptures were carved into the cliffs between the third to sixth centuries.
They were perhaps the most famous cultural landmarks of the region attracting numerous pilgrims from all around.
Two women walk past the huge cavity where one of the ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan used to stand.
The stupa of Takht-e-Rostam is located about 3 km from Samangan on top of a hill.
It was here, legends hold, that the mythical Persian king Rostam married his bride Tamina.
Takht-e-Rostam literally means the throne of Rostam.
This ancient Buddhist settlement sits on top of one of the worlds largest untapped deposits of copper ore.
There is evidence that this copper was mined in antiquity.
It was copper that made the Buddhist monks here wealthy.
A Buddhist stupa excavated at Mes Ainak.
The site is estimated to contain some 12.5 million tons of copper worth tens of billions of dollars.
The National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul has been inundated with artifacts sent from Mes Aynak.
Lack of space has forced them to return many except the most important pieces.
Photo credit: Simon Norfolk/Nat Geo
