Salman Rashid

Travel writer, Fellow of Royal Geographical Society

Sights Less Seen
30 March 2013

The Indus River has parented one of the great civilisations of the world which, modern research shows us began when man shifted from a nomadic to a sedentary life. That was about 7500 BCE. Our built heritage liberally sprinkled across this great and wonderful land, therefore dates back nearly ten thousand years.

Though the beginning of our prehistory is marked by the absence of the written word, archaeologists have yet been able to painstakingly piece together a clear and coherent story from the myriad relics discovered from the ruins of our earliest cities. Written history begins for us with the earliest Sanskrit treatises compiled from the oral tradition about the beginning of the first millennium BCE. This was followed quickly by the works of the Greeks beginning with Herodotus in the early 5th century BCE. Later still, the written word proliferated and history became much more lucid giving the remains of our ancient built heritage an historical context.

Nevertheless, there are still hundreds of monuments across the four provinces of Pakistan that continue to hold their veil of secrecy tight around themselves. Going by their architectural style, these monuments can easily be assigned a definite era, yet historians are hard put to tell us who built them and for what purpose. Indeed, most of our lesser-known monuments have either not been touched by archaeologists or, at best, have received a cursory once over. The mystery therefore abides.

The twelve historical sites from across Pakistan featuring in the following posts have been selected for two reasons: either they are relatively little known, or they hold a certain degree of inscrutability. Though some of the sites have been duly investigated by archaeologists and historians there are others in this collection that have never felt the probing touch of the scientist’s scalpel.

Note: Sights Less Seen is part of Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) book of days initiative.

Labels: Book of Days 2010, Sights Less Seen