Nancy Hatch Dupree, a historian, educator and archeologist from the United States who spent five decades preserving Afghanistan's culture, has died in the Afghan capital, Kabul. She was 89.

Dupree arrived in Kabul in 1962 as the wife of an American diplomat, but soon divorced and married archeologist Louis Dupree.

Together the couple spent the next 15 years exploring Afghanistan as her husband excavated archeological sites and she wrote guidebooks and documented the country's history.

'An old monument'

Wahid Wafa, the executive director of the Afghanistan Center at Kabul University, which Dupree founded in 2013, confirmed Dupree's death.

"She called herself an old monument and a lot of Afghans called her the 'Grandmother of Afghanistan,'" said Wafa. "She understood and knew Afghanistan much better than anybody else."

In the late 1970s, Dupree and her husband were kicked out of the country by the then Soviet-backed communist government and went to Peshawar, Pakistan.

There, she helped war refugees and gathered documents on Afghanistan. Her husband died in 1989, but she continued her work until returning to Afghanistan after a US-led intervention toppled the Taliban in 2001.

In 2005, she returned to Kabul with 35,000 documents on Afghan culture and history.

The documents would form the basis of the Afghanistan Center, the largest library and research center in the country with more than 100,000 documents.

'Pillar of the American community'

Between 2006 and 2011 Dupree was the director of the center until stepping down, although she continued to come to her office.

"Afghans possess a remarkable inner strength that has carried them through two decades of war and displacement. If they are given the knowledge they need to fully participate in reconstruction efforts, their country will move forward steadily, to the benefit of all," Dupree wrote in the New York Times in 2008.

Her efforts at preserving Afghanistan's culture and history were praised by many Afghan's on social media.

"Very saddened by the death of #NancyDupree. Afghans value and respect her services of decades for #Afghanistan. Nancy will be missed! RIP," wrote Afghanistan's Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.

The US Embassy in Kabul described Dupree as "a pillar of the American community in Afghanistan for many decades.”

Modern Afghanistan - in the past Aspiring doctors This picture, taken in 1962, shows two female medicine students at the University of Kabul listening to their professor as they examine a plaster showing a human body part. At that time, women played an active role in Afghan society. They also had access to education and were able to take up work outside home.

Modern Afghanistan - in the past Style on Kabul's streets Two young women dressed in Western-style outfits are seen in this picture taken in 1962 outside the building of Radio Kabul in the country's capital city, Kabul. After the fundamentalist Taliban took over power in the mid-1990s, women were required to wear an all-covering burqa when in public.

Modern Afghanistan - in the past Equal rights for all - not always In the mid-1970s, female students were a common sight at Afghan education centers such as Kabul's Polytechnical University. But some 20 years later, women's access to education in the conflict-ridden country was completely shut down. And it changed only after the toppling of the Taliban regime in 2001. The right to education for both men and women was enshrined in the 2003 Afghan Constitution.

Modern Afghanistan - in the past Computer science in its infancy In this picture a Soviet instructor is seen teaching computing technology to Afghan students at Kabul's Polytechnical Institute. During the 10-year Soviet occupation of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, a number of Soviet lecturers taught at Afghan universities.

Modern Afghanistan - in the past Students among themselves This 1981 picture shows an informal gathering of female and male Afghan students in Kabul. In 1979, a Soviet invasion of land-locked Afghanistan led to a 10-year war. When the Soviets withdrew from the country in 1989, a civil war ensued which culminated in the Taliban's accession to power in 1996.

Modern Afghanistan - in the past Schools for all This picture shows Afghan girls at a secondary school in Kabul at the time of the Soviet occupation. During the Taliban regime that followed just a few years later, women and girls were barred from attending school and denied access to education. They were also banned from taking up employment outside home.

Modern Afghanistan - in the past A two-class society In this picture taken in 1981, a woman, unveiled and without a headscarf, is seen with her children. Scenes such as these have been rare ever since. Even almost 15 years after the collapse of the Taliban regime, women continue to struggle for equality in the male-dominated Afghan society. For instance, there is only one woman taxi driver in the entire country. Author: Esther Felden / sri



cw/tj (AFP, dpa, Reuters)