hkadehye Sorkh Kowtal, situated in the Qondūz valley, close to the Kābul-Mazār-e Sharīf road, is dated by an inscription to the time of Kaniṣka's reign. The architecture of the region was very highly developed there. The town was protected by a double row of walls that ascended the hill on which it stood. The most impressive site within the wall was occupied by a dynastic fire temple, built to an Achaemenid (Achaemenian Dynasty) plan in large blocks of well-dressed stone and approached by an imposing staircase. Within, columns topped by Corinthian capitals supported the roof. Numerous sculptures had originally adorned the interior, those worked with floral and animal motifs conforming to the Gandhāran tradition while figural works followed Scytho-Parthian and, to some extent, Hellenistic traditions.The Buddhist art of central Afghanistan was admirably represented at Bamiyan, where Mani, the Iranian founder of the Manichaean (Manichaeism) religion, probably lived and encouraged the growth of a religious pictorial art in the 3rd century AD. At both the eastern and western approaches to Bamiyan, a huge statue of Buddha as ruler of the world was cut into the face of the rock. The smaller statue measured 120 feet (about 40 metres) and dated from soon after the town's foundation in the 4th century AD; the other measured 175 feet (53 metres) and dated from the 5th century. In their commanding monumentality, both reflected the influence of the Mathurān image of King Kaniṣka and the portrait sculpture of Sāsānian kings and Parthian notables. Traces of painting showed Sāsānian and Indian influences in the rock-hewn niche behind the earlier Buddha. In 2001 the statues were destroyed by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, who regarded them as idolatrous.Regardless of Manichaean influence, Sāsānian elements prevailed at Bamiyan between the 4th and 6th centuries. At Dūktar-e Nowshirvān, near Bamiyan, a 4th-century painting of a Sāsānian king flanked by attendants survives. The murals in Bamiyan's 5th-century temple of Kakrak include one of a deified king of Sāsānian appearance, while others display the figure of Buddha set within a circle and wearing a costume of the Sāsānian type. Sāsānian motifs of paired birds and griffins placed in medallions or pearl circlets are common. In the murals at Imgur-Enlil, Buddha wears a close-fitting tunic resembling that worn by the Sāsānian king depicted on the rock carvings of Tāq-e Bostān. The traces of Hellenism, which are also evident in these wall paintings, began to disappear by the 5th century, when Sāsānian influence gradually gave way to the Gupta (Gupta dynasty) style of India.Stemming from Gupta art is the practice adopted at Bamiyan between the 5th and 6th centuries of painting in the dome of a sanctuary a Buddha within a circle or hexagon. Gradually, these circles and hexagons became symbols of the heavenly Buddha. Many developed into rosettes and eight-pointed stars—motifs that were retained in the 10th and 11th centuries by the Islāmic Seljuqs, who carried them to Persia and Asia Minor. As Gupta influence increased, sculpture gained in importance. A new style had evolved by the 8th to 9th centuries, but it did not penetrate into western Turkistan, where the Arab conquerors religiously opposed figural art. In the 9th century many Buddhists left Kashgaria, and Islām (Islamic arts) gained ground. Figural sculpture was forced underground and was primarily produced by secret shamanistic cults of an indigenous Central Asian origin. Although figural art was never to flourish in western Turkistan as gloriously as it had prior to the Arab invasion, there was a revival under the Mongols in the form of book illuminations.Eastern TurkistanUighurs (Uighur)The figural arts found new patrons in eastern Turkistan among the Turkic Uighurs, who while living in T'ang dynasty (Tang dynasty) China had been influenced by Manichaean figurative art. The overthrow in China in AD 846 of Buddhism by official Confucianism forced the Buddhist Uighurs to migrate to eastern Turkistan. Gradually, they gained control over 