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For more than eight centuries the Towers of Victory - monuments to Afghanistan's greatest empire - have survived wars and invasions.
But now, weather and neglect could bring them crashing down.
From the Afghan city of Ghazni, the dynasty of Sultan Mahmoud Ghaznavi extended its rule from the River Tigris in modern day Iraq to the River Ganges in India.
The two toffee-coloured minarets, adorned with terracotta tiles were raised in the early 12th century as monuments to the victories of the Afghan armies that built the empire.
Since then, Afghanistan has been more the victim of invasion than the perpetrator of it.
The upper portions of the Towers of Victory have eroded away, so now only the bases remain - although they are still about 7m tall.
"If attention is not paid, there is the possibility they will be destroyed," said Aqa Mohammad Khoshazada, a senior official with Ghazni's culture and information department.
"Floods and rain in spring and snow in winter all end up around the minarets."
Ghazni is regarded as the cradle of Afghan culture and arts, and during his rule Mahmoud attracted 400 scholars and poets to his court.
Mahmoud died in 1030. His son, Sultan Masud, built one of the minarets. The other was erected by another successor.
The Ghaznavis' rule lasted for more than two centuries.
The city was then destroyed by Allauddin Ghori from central Afghanistan, who earned the nickname of "World Burner" for the massacre of Ghazni's people in an orgy of destruction and looting.
The city recovered, only to be destroyed again by a son of Genghis Khan in 1221. But the minarets survived.
Ghazni changed hands between British and Afghan forces several times in the 19th century, and the Soviet occupation of the 1980s and the civil war of the 1990s also left their mark on the city.
The two towers stand several hundred metres away from each other at the bottom of a hill.
Holes and ditches, made by illegal excavations for antiquities and buried treasure, collect water and are now undermining their foundations.
But despite repeated appeals, Afghanistan's impoverished Government has allocated only US$100 ($140) in six years to fill some of the holes around the towers.
- Reuters
