Original subtitles

- Our role here is to provide as much as we can

expertise and technical support to our Afghan colleagues

and also to train them

in order to be able to handle this operation.

Now we know maybe 10% of the site,

and the potential is showing that 90% of the site

is still to be excavated.

So it means that the more interesting thing about this site

are going to be discovered,

even if what have been discovered already

is absolutely stupendous.

- A lot of very interesting, well-preserved in this area.

What we have seen already was the top of the iceberg,

and now we are going little by little

down to the bottom of the iceberg.

- Mes Aynak, as a trading center,

would have had people coming from China,

from the Mediterranean, from South Asia.

It would have been a crossroads

for everything that we know of the Old World.

Mes Aynak is one of the most important sites in the century,

And I'm involved with research in South Asia and West Asia.

I've been working in China,

and being able to look at the materials from Mes Aynak

is at the top of the list.

Mes Aynak was the earliest major copper-working area.

There's a huge complex of Buddhist monasteries

associated with copper-working.

And there's something on top too?

This type of construction,

I haven't seen this in Taxila area.

This is unique to Afghanistan.

The materials that are coming from Mes Aynak are exquisite.

Walking around the site, I was surprised to see

as much manufacturing debris laying around.

It's a huge piece of slate.

Copper prills or fragments of tuyeres,

the things that you blast air into furnaces with.

Grinding stones that are used for crushing ore.

And they were everywhere.

There were so many of them

that the archeologists just leave them on the ground.

I've never seen wood at a Buddhist site

in Pakistan or any other regions.

This site has preservation on a scale

that no other sites have.

- We will be able to remove 10,000 of our troops

from Afghanistan by the end of this year,

and we will bring home a total of 33,000 troops

by next summer.

By 2014, the Afghan people will be responsible

for their own security.

- It's very challenging to try to train all these people

and to help them to do their world.

'Cause it is complicated

if you have understand the fact is that,

well, there are many workers,

there are always problem of delays in payment and so on.

It's very challenging both from a scientific point of view

and also from, say, a technical point of view.

And management of the people here, it's quite big issue

and a very interesting one.

- The Aynak copper mines will create

direct and indirect job plus/minus 7,000,

and they will develop the area

and they will create a job.

So if you calculate it all together,

the impact in the national economy

is coming about 1.2 billion dollars.

And how does the average person, Afghan

benefit from that?

- If you divide it by the population,

that's the average that the people can get it.

Some people, direct, they can get it

through their payment for their wages, salary,

and some people are working in the transportation,

and some people might be involved in other business,

and so anybody can get the benefit from this mine.

- The mining industry in China

has taken off since the 1970s,

but regulations to protect the environment and residents

from mining pollution have not kept pace.

China's largest copper producer

is being blamed for water pollution

that's affecting hundreds of thousands of people.

Residents there say wastewater from mining activities

is flowing into a major river,

contaminating farmland and damaging the health of locals.

- Chinese have already done a study of the water tables,

and based on that, if they're gonna be

extracting water from the water aquifers,

they're going to be affect 174 villages around Aynak.

There are people, human beings living there.

They're going to be using that water

for drinking purposes, for agricultural purposes and all.

So we're going to be affecting the life of people

in very negative way.

- Most of the residents have been either forced

or they have left or they are not allowed to return.

I mean, they are losing everything.

They'll have to be compensated.

They'll have to be brought to the round table,

discuss things with, consulted properly, and then resettled.

He's saying if people were happy with the-

He's saying please don't translate it,

this part that he said.

- Finish, finish.

- Preserving Mes Aynak is an important gesture

for Afghanistan.

It's an important gesture

for all the archeologists in the world

who are concerned with preserving human culture.

What's happening now in Mes Aynak is a discovery

of lots of new information relating to language.

They've found some new manuscripts.

Philippe Marquis seems to think

that they will be finding a lot more of those.

- So there is some of them are in Indian languages

and Brahmi,

and we have one inscription on the Buddha

which is in Bactrian, which is very interesting.

So we are thinking we are expecting to find a lot of things.

There and going there.

All of the others are going down here,

are going in this direction,

and the wall is here.

The destruction of Mes Aynak itself

would be like Atlantis going into the ocean

and disappearing from history.

Really important discoveries of coins and terracotta images,

various types of jewelry and et cetera

that was deposited as offerings.

These are the things which are unparalleled.

This is Marek, over.

They're just starting work.

- Yes, okay, roger that.

We are just hired by Ministry of Mines.

We are trying to do our best.

At the moment, we've got only four more months to finish,

which seems to be almost impossible.

In this case, probably no one is able

to stop mining Mes Aynak.

This many walls got damaged.

- No, no, yeah, there is no problem.

I have not destroyed any walls.

- We are archeologists.

We not work it with excavator.

We work it with shovel.

- Yeah, yeah, I know.

So now we are at the horizon,

but we can use the shovel and the trowel.

- As far as I know, they want to leave some stones,

so it will be left for workers.

- First off, they test it.

Then they'll use the excavator.

- Yeah, this is what I have done.

Yeah, I take it down this much at a time.

So first they remove the topsoil

for 10 centimeters.

- And then stop, yeah.

And the driver has been shown, see?

When loose, not a problem.

When he hits stone, rest.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I've got some points from Guy

so that's why we're working here.

- Maybe with Qadir, maybe with Qadir, I don't know.

This is rescue archeology,

which means that we are trying just to excavate

and to record as soon, as fast as possible.

That's why sometimes it looks that some bad guys

are using heavy machinery for excavating.

I would be more happy to excavate

according to all standards,

recording stratigraphy, just digging using manpower,

but unfortunately we have no time.

This is amazing.

I haven't seen it before.

Amazing, the best of the best in this site.

This is temple so it's possible that we've got three, four,

even five subsequent phases of occupation here.

At the moment, we've got some evidence

for late Kushan occupation and early Sassanid

and probably Hephthalite occupation as well,

which means it's about 450 years.

Chinese are going to create one big crater here

about 500 meters deep,

so all these sites, all this heritage

will be completely destroyed.

Well, the attacks started about 1:30 pm today.

It was at an intersection near the US embassy.

The Taliban have claimed responsibility for this attack.

It's the third major attack in Kabul since late June.

- I just heard on CNN that

there was an attack on the Bagram Air Force yesterday,

and shrapnel hit one of the planes of one of the commanders,

and some people were injured on the runway.

If you can't protect the Bagram Air Force Base,

then basically we're in God's hands.

The security situation is getting worse and worse

every week, every month.

Every trip to Kabul or back,

it's a kind of Russian roulette.

- Good evening.

Tonight, a special investigation.

The place is called Mes Aynak.

Each day brings new precious finds.

This site will eventually be destroyed.

- Okay, not bad.