Oil paintings found in ancient Buddhist caves

Caves behind the colossal Buddha statues destroyed in 2001 in the Afghan region of Bamiyan feature precious wall paintings from the 5th to the 9th century A.D.  These caves have become the source of a major discovery: Thanks to a clever combination of synchrotron techniques, scientists identified the presence of oil in the paintings, made hundreds of years before such know-how was "reinvented" in Europe.

Wall painting from Bamiyan. The insert shows the different layers and the concentration of esters in a sample from the wall painting, indicating the presence of oil (image credit: National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo (NRICPT), Japan 2007).

Further information:

• Synchrotron light unveils oil in ancient Buddhist paintings from Bamiyan

• Ref.: M. Cotte et al., J. Anal. At. Spectrom. 23, 820–828 (2008).