By Terry Friel KABUL, March 17 (Reuters) - Some of Afghanistan's oldest and most famous exiles came home on Saturday, welcomed back by prayers and talk of peace on a chill and grey winter day. Many are thousands of years old, ranging from the only known item touched by Alexander the Great to a 2,300-year-old shower spout and everyday yak hair fly swats. Across from the battle-scarred ruins of the Darul Aman palace in Kabul, national museum staff began unpacking and logging more than 1,400 items -- about 8-10 tonnes -- from possibly the world's only official museum-in-exile. "Afghanistan's past, its memory was lost. Now it has returned," said Paul Bucherer-Dietschi, curator of the Museum -in-Exile in Switzerland, beaming as he opened the first crate. The celebration was almost six years to the day after the Taliban blew up the standing Buddhas of Bamiyan, towering sculptures carved out of cliffs in a valley in central Afghanistan and part of the rich heritage of a country at the crossroads of Central Asia, South Asia and China. The treasures are being moved into the same building the Taliban ransacked after taking power in 1996. 2,300-YEAR-OLD SHOWER Despite the Taliban's objection to idols and images, the hardline Islamists and their Northern Alliance enemiÿes asked the Swiss-based Foundation Bibliotheca Afghanica for a safe place to store Afghan artefacts in 1998. Key Taliban commanders, including then foreign minister Mullah Abdul Wakil Muttawakil, feared their own hardliners would destroy important pieces of the country's history. The first item pulled out of the first crate on Saturday was a gargoyle used as a water spout for bathing in the northern Afghan city of Ai-Khanum, founded by Alexander the Great 2,330 years ago. Deputy Culture Minister Omar Sultan said the collection -- made up entirely of donations since the museum formally opened in 2000 -- was priceless and did not disclose its insured value. One of the most prized items is a glass phallus inserted every March into a hole in the foundation stone of Ai-Khanum. It is the only known object reliably believed to have been touched by the Greek warrior, who conducted the first ceremony. The return of the items gathered over years by private collectors, people who worked in Afghanistan and some who stayed anonymous began with a prayer from the Koran. "To find peace in Afghanistan, to pave the way to a permanent solution in my view the only way is via culture, via traditional Afghan culture," Bucherer-Dietschi said. Culture Minister Abdul Karim Khurram said the return of the artefacts showed the country was secure and recovering its past. "It's very valuable symbolically and materially," he said. "A very big part of Afghanistan's lost treasures have come back. It shows the time has gone when it is possible to loot and steal." But looting continues in a country where there is little government outside major cities, no law, no jobs and the police are corrupt. "We have difficulties in Afghanistan with all this looting," said his deputy, Sultan, adding Afghanistan was seeking the return of other artefacts from foreign museums and those confiscated by international police. A new archaeological police force is also being raised. "It's our cultural heritage. It will take time, but in the long range we hope this kind of thing will stop."
