The cul­tur­al land­scape and archae­o­log­i­cal remains of the Bamiyan Val­ley rep­re­sent the artis­tic and reli­gious devel­op­ments which from the 1st to the 13th cen­turies char­ac­ter­ized ancient Bakh­tria, inte­grat­ing var­i­ous cul­tur­al influ­ences into the Gand­hara school of Bud­dhist art. The area con­tains numer­ous Bud­dhist monas­tic ensem­bles and sanc­tu­ar­ies, as well as for­ti­fied edi­fices from the Islam­ic peri­od. The site is also tes­ti­mo­ny to the trag­ic destruc­tion by the Tal­iban of the two stand­ing Bud­dha stat­ues, which shook the world in March 2001.