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Published online 22 April 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.770
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Ancient Buddhas painted in oils
Were painters on the Silk Road way ahead of the Europeans?
Artists in Afghanistan used a primitive form of oil paint on cave walls hundreds of years before it became common practice in Europe, according to new research.
Yoko Taniguchi of the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties in Tokyo and her co-workers analysed samples of Buddhist paintings in caves at Bamiyan in Afghanistan, made in the mid-seventh and early eighth centuries AD.
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