A team led by Luca Olivieri is in news for the reason that they are going to give the 1,500-year-old rock carving of Buddha in northwest Pakistan, a facelift. Along with it, there would be similar actions taken for other archaeological treasures too.

It’s known that the Buddhist statues in central Afghanistan were some five years ago, blew off by Taliban in 2007. Now, the same would be preserved. It is known that hardliners for long have been against any form of religious sites except Islam, and perhaps that’s what triggered the disaster.

It was told that the Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan had left in 2008, but later he came back in 2010. While complete construction would be a lot difficult, the team is trying their best to fix the damage. “Whatever you do in the absence of perfect data is a fake”, said Olivieri, who is reported to have keen interest in archaeology. It was in the year 1987 that he became a lot inspired by what he saw in Swat and from there on, his interest gradually started rising.

Furthermore, his project is being financially backed by the Italian government. It was also claimed that from 200 Buddhist rock carvings in Swat, the Jahanabad Buddha was the lucky ones which manage to have their face intact for so long.