Origins of oil painting from 7th Century Afghanistan?

Remember back in 2001 when the Bamiyan Buddhas Statues were blown up by the Taleban?

Well, according to an article I read on BBCNews, there are a network of caves that were behind the Buddhas where the monks lived and prayed.

Recently scientists have had the opportunity to visit these caves and found a number of cave paintings of "7th-Century wall-paintings (that) were created using oil paint, derived possibly from walnuts or the poppies which grew in the area. It is believed that oil painting in Europe began only some six centuries after this. The findings suggest these may be the oldest known examples anywhere of painting with oil."

The paintings depicted devotional depictions of Buddha wearing colorful robes. "Bamiyan has much to tell the world about an era of art which is still little understood." What a tragedy it is that some people feel a need to destroy another person's cultural, religious and artistic link to our past.

How interesting. Giorgio Vasari (renaissance artist and historian) had rumored that Jan Van Eyck of the Netherlands was the the first to develop oil painting as a process. This changes the birth date of the medium by about 800 years.