Beneath a sunbaked hill in what is now northern Afghanistan, something lay in wait that had risen to almost mythical status. When archaeologists excavated the site in 1978, what they sought seemed unlikely to appear. But the hill they were digging into had earned its name for a reason: Tillya Tepe, or Hill of Gold. It was supposedly where a legendary hoard of gilded artifacts had been buried thousands of years before, and as it turned out, the dry, rocky earth was indeed still hiding relics of ancient splendor.

Gold was not the first thing the archaeologists unearthed at Tillya Tepe. Viktor Sarianidi flew in from Moscow to lead a Soviet-Afghan team in a search for ruins, and they first dusted off what remained of an Iron Age temple. As they explored that discovery, something gleamed underfoot—a small gold disk that led Sarianidi to delve deeper.

Slowly, a skull emerged, then an entire skeleton bedecked in gold and jewels befitting nomadic royalty. The team soon uncovered more graves. On the bones of a warrior they found daggers and sheaths encrusted with gems. Golden medallions carved in the image of the Greek god Dionysus adorned his belt, while another depicted Buddha. It soon became evident that this was a place where cultures had merged.

Tillya Tepe was once a trade hub along the Silk Road where nomads exchanged goods, gods, and other cultural influences. Travelers came from as far away as Siberia, India, Rome, and China. The aesthetics and iconography of these cultures fused together in workshops that produced everything from gold rings stamped with Greco-Roman deities to jewelry vaguely reminiscent of Chinese dragons. An opulent crown of golden flowers had been made so it could be taken apart for transport and reassembled later.

But while the discovery was extremely exciting, it also triggered anxiety. Soon after Sarianidi and his team uncovered what would be known as the Bactrian Hoard, war threatened Afghanistan, and tribesmen took up arms. Excavations could not continue, so the archaeologists gathered the 2,000-year-old artifacts they had recovered and fled the site, reluctantly abandoning the last unexplored grave. Anything that had been in that grave was soon raided by looters.

Sarianidi brought his entire cache to the National Museum in Kabul, but it would not remain safe there for long. In 1988, as Soviet forces prepared to withdraw from Afghanistan, President Mohammad Najibullah ordered the treasure to be packed up and sealed in the vaults of the Central Bank. For years afterward, as the country descended into civil war and the museum itself was shelled and looted, no one outside a small circle knew where the gold had gone. Rumors spread that it had been stolen or melted down—but the few who knew the truth kept silent.

The hoard would not surface again for more than a decade. After the Taliban was fell from power in 2001, the five tawadars (or keyholders) who had guarded the vault proved difficult to find because their names had been kept secret for their own protection. But one April day in 2004, a group that included Sarianidi and other archaeologists gathered in a back office of the bank to unlock the cache of 22,000 artifacts. National Geographic fellow Fredrik Hiebert was also present, and the National Geographic Society later collaborated with several museums (such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Asian Art Museum, and the National Gallery of Art) to display the treasure in touring exhibitions until it could return to the museum in Kabul.

Then, the Bactrian Hoard disappeared again.

The last time anyone saw the Bactrian gold was late 2020, when it glittered in the Presidential Palace of Afghanistan among an exclusive crowd of government officials, civil activists, and media personnel who had been invited to discuss how to protect the invaluable historic treasure. China was the last country outside of Afghanistan to display any of the objects, which are now thought to have been hidden away again for preservation, especially since some pieces made from thin sheets of hammered gold are extremely fragile. At least the digital archive of the National Museum can be used to prevent counterfeiting and track any artifact that goes missing.

Mohammad Fahim Rahimi, Director of the National Museum of Afghanistan, told the Independent Persian in 2023 that he had personally inspected the Bactrian Hoard after the Taliban took power and was confident all items remained intact. But his reassurance was tempered by hard experience. In 2001, during the Taliban’s first reign, fighters broke into the museum and smashed some 2,500 ancient sculptures they deemed un-Islamic idols—a campaign of destruction that culminated in the dynamiting of the Bamiyan Buddhas. Four years before the Taliban returned, Rahimi had voiced his dread of exactly such a repetition.

“We have achieved a lot in 18 years since the Taliban were defeated,” he told the Associated Press in 2019. “If they are here in power and there is no change in their mentality, it means we are definitely back where we started and whatever we achieved will be gone.”