US historian who spent decades in Afghanistan dies at 90

FILE - In this Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014 file photo, Nancy Hatch Dupree listens during an interview with The Associated Press at the Afghanistan Center at Kabul University. Dupree, an American historian who spent decades in Afghanistan working to preserve the heritage of the war-torn country has died following a long illness. An Afghan government statement said Sunday, Sept. 10, 2017, that Dupree, who first came to Afghanistan in 1962 and spent much of her life collecting and documenting historical artifacts, died in Kabul overnight at the age of 90. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini, File)

By Associated Press September 10, 2017 2 min read

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – An American historian who spent decades in Afghanistan working to preserve the heritage of the war-torn country has died.

An Afghan government statement said Sunday that Nancy Hatch Dupree, who first came to Afghanistan in 1962 and spent much of her life collecting and documenting historical artifacts, died in Kabul overnight at the age of 90. It did not give a cause or precise time of death.

She amassed a vast collection of books, maps, photographs and even rare recordings of folk music, all now housed at Kabul University, and wrote five guidebooks.

Dupree came to Afghanistan as the wife of a diplomat, but later fell in love with Louis Dupree, an archaeologist and anthropologist. They married and lived for decades in Afghanistan, visiting historical sites across the country, retracing the footsteps of ancient explorers and documenting it all.

Together they wrote the definitive book on Afghanistan, an encyclopedic look at the country they had adopted as their own.