Bamiyan Buddhas may smile again.

When the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan destroyed two 1,600-year-old Buddha statues lining Bamiyan Valley's soaring cliffs, the world shook with shock at the demise of such huge archaeological treasures.

Internationally renowned artist Hiro Yamagata stands next to a holographic cube Monday at his studio in Torrance, California.

Japanese artist Hiro Yamagata plans to commemorate the towering Buddhas by projecting multicolored laser images onto the clay cliff-sides where the figures once stood, about 130 km west of Kabul.

The Buddhas must be rebuilt for their historical, not religious, value.

"The Taliban did a very bad thing destroying the Buddhas," says Sadeq, a 24-year old Bamiyan merchant whose general goods store looks out on the empty niches where the Buddhas once stood. "They thought people worshipped them. But it wasn't a holy site, it was a historic site."

Source : The Japan Times , MSNBC.