2,000-year old: Peshawar’s Buddha goes to Zurich

PESHAWAR: A large statue of Buddha housed in Peshawar Museum has gone on display at Rietberg Museum, Zurich, for three months.

The nine-foot high statue of Buddha weighing over 1,500kg has been loaned to Rietberg Museum, which sees visitors coming from across the globe.

The display is part of the agreement Pakistan inked with the Swiss government for cooperation in the field of archeology, officials said.

The over 2,000 years old artifact was flown to the Swiss city under Rs2.6 billion insurance cover.

K-P Senior Minister Atif Khan along with Secretary of Archeology, Shahid Zaman also traveled to Switzerland for publicity of the statue.

While speaking to The Express Tribune Atif Khan said that the display of K-P’s Budhist heritage was meant to promote religious tourism abroad and to attract tourists to Pakistan.

“We have been in meeting with delegations of Japan, China, Korea and other pacific countries which have shown interest in religious tourism and also in mutual exchange programme related to Buddha statues,” Khan added.

He said that they had acquired the services of German experts for the shipment of the statue. “It took us a week to safely pack the statue and complete the shipping procedure,” which takes a week in preserving and shipment procedure and it would be on display for three months.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 15^th, 2018.