The 2,100-year-old treasure, stored in Kabul's presidential palace, has been the subject of fantastic rumours. Some believe that a band of Soviet troops broke into the vault to steal the treasures and replaced them with fakes in the last hours of their occupation.
Others say Osama bin Laden arranged for the massive haul of gold to be smuggled through the mountains into Pakistan, where antique dealers waited to sell it, presumably to finance his al-Qaeda terrorist network.
But if the treasure is still safe in the vault, and there has been no independent confirmation of that for years, it is largely due to the efforts of one brave man: Askerzai, a quiet, stocky, 50-year-old who has endured beatings, jailing, regime change and war through three decades of guarding the vaults.
Askerzai -- who, like many Afghans, has only one name -- still works for the central bank and is one of only a few to have seen the 20,000 gold objects. "It's the best heritage of our country," he said.
The coins, medallions, plates and necklaces set with precious stones were excavated in 1978 by the Russian archeologist Viktor Sarianidi, who found them in five royal burial sites.
Those are in northern Afghanistan, in what now is called Balkh province; when Alexander the Great conquered the country about 330 B.C., it was known as Bactria.
"It is the biggest hoard of gold ever discovered," said Jim Williams of the UNESCO office in Kabul. "It was like finding King Tut's tomb over again."
Soon after Mr. Sarianidi's astonishing discovery, a guerrilla war began against the Soviet occupation, and civil war followed. The mystery surrounding the treasure began to grow.
By weight, the value of the gold, silver and jewels would be in the millions of dollars, but given their historic value, they are virtually priceless.
The day before the Russians fled Kabul in February, 1989, the treasure was moved to the presidential compound on the orders of Mohammed Najibullah, the Communist president who would be executed by the Taliban.
Askerzai helped to seal the treasure in seven trunks. He guarded it along with the assets of the central bank: gold bars the "size of your arm" worth more than $100-million, which were also kept in the presidential palace.
The treasure was hidden in a vault carved out of rock and protected by steel doors that were bolted shut with seven locks. The keys for those locks were held by seven people, most of whom are now missing or dead. One was Mr. Najibullah.
The German company that built the vault is now making another set of keys so the Ministry of Information and Culture can catalogue the treasure, which has never been evaluated.
Askerzai said that when the anti-Communist mujahadeen took control of the capital, he did not tell them of the vault's whereabouts. The warlord Ahmed Shah Masood, who helped overthrow the regime, refused to allow anyone near the vaults.
Then, within days of the Taliban capturing Kabul in 1996, a delegation of 10 mullahs arrived with a jeweller to inspect the vaults. Someone placed a pistol against Askerzai's head and told him to open the vault.
He did, but showed them only the central bank vault containing the gold bars. They were unaware of the treasures in the other vault, hidden above their heads in the rock.
When the Taliban asked whether there was any other gold, Askerzai remained silent. He was imprisoned for three months and 17 days -- and beaten and tortured during that time -- but did not reveal the location of the other vault. He was eventually allowed to return his job guarding the gold.
"I wasn't scared," he said. "I didn't care for my life. They were foreigners. They were not Afghans."
However, he still fears enough for his life to refuse to be photographed.
On the Taliban's final night in power, as the U.S. military pounded the country with bombs and Northern Alliance forces closed in on Kabul, the Taliban stuffed the central bank's reserves into tin trunks, and then went to the vault for the gold bars. They spent a desperate four hours trying to open the vault as Askerzai watched.
Unknown to them, he had, five years earlier, broken off the key in the lock when he first showed them the gold. They gave up, and fled Kabul as the forces of the Northern Alliance approached. That saved the bullion.
The Taliban did not even think to ask again about the Golden Hoard of Bactria. Askersai believes the uneducated mullahs were not schooled in Afghanistan's great archeological heritage. They had never heard of Bactria.
"Fortunately, in this case," he said, "the Taliban's lack of historical knowledge assisted us."
