from a prayer tower destroyed in war

Throughout Afghan cities, decrepit infrastructure and bombed-out houses stand as reminders of endless conflict. In the countryside, decaying tanks and abandoned war machines litter the landscape. Each period of conflict in Afghanistan has produced its own rubble—quiet witnesses of hundreds of years of the violent collisions of cultures, ideologies and empires. Built in the 1400s under Queen Gawhar Shad, a minaret in the Musalla of Gawhar Shah has suffered centuries of invasions, wars, and foreign occupations. As of the early 2000s, the land surrounding the religious complex was still littered with active landmines. Street sweepers continued to tend to the sacred area, arranging broken pieces from the minaret into small piles along the side of the road to be discarded.

Lukas Birk in Herat