<P> The main bodies were hewn directly from the sandstone cliffs, but details were modeled in mud mixed with straw, coated with stucco . This coating, practically all of which wore away long ago, was painted to enhance the expressions of the faces, hands, and folds of the robes; the larger one was painted carmine red and the smaller one was painted multiple colors . </P> <P> The lower parts of the statues' arms were constructed from the same mud - straw mix supported on wooden armatures . It is believed that the upper parts of their faces were made from great wooden masks or casts . The rows of holes that can be seen in photographs held wooden pegs that stabilized the outer stucco . </P> <P> They were dynamited and destroyed in March 2001 by the Taliban, on orders from leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, after the Taliban government declared that they were idols . An envoy visiting the United States in the following weeks said that they were destroyed to protest international aid exclusively reserved for statue maintenance while Afghanistan was experiencing famine, while the Afghan Foreign Minister claimed that the destruction was merely about carrying out Islamic religious iconoclasm . International opinion strongly condemned the destruction of the Buddhas, which in the following years was primarily viewed as an example of the extreme religious intolerance of the Taliban . Japan and Switzerland, among others, have pledged support for the rebuilding of the statues . </P> <P> Bamiyan lies on the Silk Road, which runs through the Hindu Kush mountain region, in the Bamiyan Valley . The Silk Road has been historically a caravan route linking the markets of China with those of the Western world . It was the site of several Buddhist monasteries, and a thriving center for religion, philosophy, and art . Monks at the monasteries lived as hermits in small caves carved into the side of the Bamiyan cliffs . Most of these monks embellished their caves with religious statuary and elaborate, brightly colored frescoes . It was a Buddhist religious site from the 2nd century up to the time of the Islamic invasion in the later half of the 7th century . Until it was completely conquered by the Muslim Saffarids in the 9th century, Bamiyan shared the culture of Gandhara . </P>

Buddas of bamiyan demolished in 2001 in which country