I have always been taught in my art history classes that oil painting originated in Europe in the 15th Century.

My sister, who recently came back from Afghanistan, told me that she saw oil paintings in the caves behind the destroyed Buddhas in Bamiyan.

I looked this up and it seems to be true :::

Samples from paintings, dating from the 7th century AD, were taken from caves behind two statues of Buddha in Bamiyan blown up as un-Islamic by Afghanistan’s hardline Taliban in 2001.

Scientists discovered paintings in 12 of the 50 caves were created using oil paints, possibly from walnut or poppy, the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in France said on its Web site on Tuesday.

World’s oldest oil paintings in Afghanistan | Reuters

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