Mes Aynak : World's Oldest Buddhist Temple

Mes Aynak is a site 40 km (25 mi) southeast of Kabul, Afghanistan, located in Logar Province. The site contains Afghanistan's largest copper deposit, as well as the remains of an ancient settlement with over 400 Buddha statues, stupas and a monastery complex. Archaeologists are only beginning to find remnants of an older 5,000-year-old Bronze Age site beneath the Buddhist level, including an ancient copper smelter. The site's orientation on the Silk Road has yielded a mixture of elements from Iran, China and India.

A Chinese copper mine in Afghanistan has run into complications after the executive leading the $3 billion project was expelled from the Chinese Communist Party for corruption. Shen Heting of the state-owned China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) signed a 30-year lease to build a open-pit copper mine at Mes Aynak in 2007.