Town with Seven Lives
10 March 2017
Having pushed his way up through Bajaur, Alexander turned downstream as he reached the Punjkora River. Where Punjkora meets the Swat River, he wheeled north to take the fortified town of Ora, which was reportedly getting reinforcements from neighbouring areas. January 326 BCE, would have made for a bleak setting of leafless trees, barren ground and grey skies in the Swat lowlands, rendered the gloomier in the face of imminent invasion.
History records that the siege of Ora “gave Alexander very little trouble”. In fact, he is said to have taken the town at first assault, winning, among other spoils, a number of elephants from its fort.
Read more »Labels: Archaeology, Book of Days 2014, Discoveries of Empire, Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Mansura of the Arabs
01 December 2014
The ancient city marked by mounds spreads in an undulating square some kilometre and a half each way. The earth here is deep red with the colour of fired bricks and pottery. The bricks, some of the large pre-Arab size, others smaller, are eaten away by salinity which turns the terracotta brittle to the touch. This is the last remnant of Brahminabad, the heavily fortified city that was, according to Chachnama, the seat of government of middle Sindh.
From Chachnama we know that Brahminabad was an ancient city even at the time of the Arab conquest in 711 CE. One history records that it was established in about 450 BCE by the Achaemenian King Bahman, also known by the royal title of Ardesher Drazdast. This may well be correct as Sindh was a satrapy under the Achaemenians and Bahman did indeed found at least two other towns here. The city was initially called Bahmandabad after its patron but the name was altered over time, possibly due to the influence of the Brahmin class.
Read more »Labels: Archeology, Book of Days 2014, Discoveries of Empire, Sindh
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Perch of the Queen
01 November 2014
The Yusufzai plain in Mardan District was once rich with stories of Raja Vara. Inevitably, most ancient ruins in this district abounding with Gandhara sculpture were attributed to this mythical raja. So when archaeologist Alexander Cunningham visited the area in the 1860s in search of sites connected with Alexander’s campaigns, he was told the legend of Raja Vara and his rock climbing queen.
Vara’s ruined castle high up on an elongated hill above Naogram village was remarkable for the large, upright and smooth-sided rock rearing nearly eight metres above the hill’s northern extremity. This, the queen is said to have ascended daily to survey her husband’s territory. And so the complex of ruined buildings was Rani Gut or the Queen’s Rock in Pashto.
Read more »Vara’s ruined castle high up on an elongated hill above Naogram village was remarkable for the large, upright and smooth-sided rock rearing nearly eight metres above the hill’s northern extremity. This, the queen is said to have ascended daily to survey her husband’s territory. And so the complex of ruined buildings was Rani Gut or the Queen’s Rock in Pashto.
Labels: Archeology, Book of Days 2014, Discoveries of Empire, Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Bounty of the Kushans
01 October 2014
Following Alexander Cunningham’s survey of 1848 and the resultant identification of a Buddhist site above the village of Jamal Garhi near Mardan, another military officer-turned-archaeologist came around in 1852 to make a cursory excavation. Though his work was inconclusive, he uncovered an array of damaged sculptures of very fine workmanship. Word was the site was periodically robbed of its reliquary, someone even removing 12 camel-loads of sculpture only a decade earlier.
The site was then mapped and most of the debris cleared to reveal a beautiful monastery constructed in large diaper masonry of stone quarried from the surrounding hills. The site, an elongated hill, offered sufficient space for the main stupa, a number of votive stupas and the various buildings of the monastery to be spread out instead of being packed close together as we see in Takht Bahi or most other Taxila monasteries.
Read more »Labels: Archeology, Book of Days 2014, Discoveries of Empire, Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Monastery of the Fount
01 September 2014
The decades between 1840 and 1870 were frenetically busy for archaeologists across the Indian subcontinent. The Yusufzai plain, spreading between Peshawar in the west, the barrier of Malakand Pass in the north and Indus River in the east, had shortly before been discovered to be the epicentre of what became known as Gandhara art. Inevitably, archaeologists were drawn to this fertile area where virtually every hill abounded with ancient ruins.
North of Mardan town, on the highroad to the Malakand Pass, east of the tiny village of Takht Bahi rose an isolated hill with a crest peppered with stonework peeking out of accumulated earth washed down from the surrounding slopes and overgrown vegetation. The first archaeologists, engaged in only a cursory examination, concluded that this was a site of an ancient Buddhist monastery. The little that the team saw was misunderstood. The circular bases of the domes above the shrines were taken to be pedestals of stupas and other buildings construed to have served as grain silos. But no mistake was made about the quadrangular stupa court with its surrounding arrangement of chapels.
Read more »Labels: Archeology, Book of Days 2014, Discoveries of Empire, Khyber-Pukhtunkhwa
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Ancient Emporium of Sindh
01 August 2014
In the 1st century BCE, an anonymous Greek sailor wrote a detailed and useful handbook titled Periplus Maris Erythraei or Circumnavigation of the Eastern Ocean. This was a gazetteer of sea lanes, ports, commerce and winds of the seaboard between Egypt and south India. The book tells us of an extremely busy port named Barbarikon, sitting in the Indus delta on a branch of the great river.
Barbarikon traded with most countries of the civilized world of its time, Periplus tells us, where ships called from as far away as Egypt and the ports of south India. Outgoing goods ranged from Sindhi indigo, ironware and cotton to lapis lazuli and chrysolite brought in from the mines of Afghanistan. Imports were as extravagant as Mediterranean wines, silver and glassware and high-end drinking vessels. A port as active as Barbarikon, accruing large sums in custom duties, could only have been immensely affluent.
Read more »Labels: Archaeology, Book of Days 2014, Discoveries of Empire, Sindh
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Riches beyond Measure
01 July 2014
As Alexander approached the vicinity of present-day Sukkur, he was much impressed by the fertility of the land. This was “the richest [country] in India”, his historian Arrian tells us. Fearing for the safety of his life and kingdom, King Musicanus made an overture for peace, resultantly retaining the throne with Alexander entering the city as guest rather than victor. The conqueror, Arrian asserts, was all admiration for the country and capital city and ordered for its citadel to be strengthened so that a Greek garrison could be left behind to keep watch on neighbouring tribes.
Another Greek historian would have us believe that the land was so rich and fertile and its produce so healthful and abundant that people ordinarily lived to ages well beyond 100 years. Though such longevity is doubtful, the fertility of the land is believable: we know from British travellers of the early 19th century that during summer floods, the Indus in this vicinity spread from its bed over 30 kilometres between Sukkur and Rohri all the way up to Shikarpur and Larkana.
Labels: Archaeology, Book of Days 2014, Discoveries of Empire, Sindh
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Compass Converse
01 May 2014
Alexander’s historian Arrian tells us the Macedonian conqueror crossed the river Hydraotes, also known as Iravati or Ravi, on his way east when he received word of the Cathaei bracing for war in the town of Sangala. The town was believed to be heavily fortified and its men excellent soldiers. The formidable Cathaei, Alexander was told, had earlier defied both Raja Paurava and Abisares, king of Kashmir. To leave them to their devices in his rear was akin to inviting mischief. So he decided to move against the martial tribe, today identified with the Kathia Rajputs.
A three day-march brought him from the Ravi to Sangala. Here he found the fighters securely in position on a hill of varying steepness fronting their town. All around, the Cathaei had built a defensive barrier by putting carts front-to-back in three tiers. The only gap left relatively insecure was the natural barrier formed by a shallow lake. In the space between the inner line of carts and the defensive wall of bricks around the hill, the defenders waited in leaguer.
Read more »A three day-march brought him from the Ravi to Sangala. Here he found the fighters securely in position on a hill of varying steepness fronting their town. All around, the Cathaei had built a defensive barrier by putting carts front-to-back in three tiers. The only gap left relatively insecure was the natural barrier formed by a shallow lake. In the space between the inner line of carts and the defensive wall of bricks around the hill, the defenders waited in leaguer.
Labels: Archaeology, Book of Days 2014, Discoveries of Empire, Punjab
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Rendering in Dressed Stone - Taxila
01 April 2014
When Alexander of Macedonia tarried here, his historians sang Taxila as a city “most considerable between the Indus and the Hydaspes [Jhelum]”. But when it fell into decay sometime in the 11th century, it completely passed from human memory.
In the 1850s, Alexander Cunningham, well-versed in classical and early medieval texts, searching for the lost city, arrived at the site of a series of mounds that he believed could be Taxila. While the city’s name was forgotten, its much-storied glory refused to exit the collective consciousness: the locals still knew the hillocks as Dheri Shahan or Mound of Kings.
Read more »In the 1850s, Alexander Cunningham, well-versed in classical and early medieval texts, searching for the lost city, arrived at the site of a series of mounds that he believed could be Taxila. While the city’s name was forgotten, its much-storied glory refused to exit the collective consciousness: the locals still knew the hillocks as Dheri Shahan or Mound of Kings.
Labels: Archaeology, Book of Days 2014, Discoveries of Empire, Punjab
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Treasure Forsaken
01 March 2014
Xuanzang, the celebrated Chinese pilgrim who journeyed across India for 16 years between 630 and 646, left behind a remarkable record of his travels and travails. Without the account left by this pious seeker of the original texts of Buddhism, some of our history would surely have either been lost forever or at best misinterpreted. One story Xuanzang recounts tells us of Raja Sibika.
This great king was an earlier incarnation of the great Buddha. In that life, seeking to attain enlightenment or budh, he one day chanced upon a dove in the clutches of a hawk. As Buddha was known to do in the future, Raja Sibika cut off chunks of flesh from his own body to offer to the hungry hawk and rescued the dove. Our devout pilgrim tells us of a stupa dedicated to this king somewhere in Swat.
Read more »This great king was an earlier incarnation of the great Buddha. In that life, seeking to attain enlightenment or budh, he one day chanced upon a dove in the clutches of a hawk. As Buddha was known to do in the future, Raja Sibika cut off chunks of flesh from his own body to offer to the hungry hawk and rescued the dove. Our devout pilgrim tells us of a stupa dedicated to this king somewhere in Swat.
Labels: Archaeology, Book of Days 2014, Discoveries of Empire, Punjab
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:30,
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Besting the Nile
01 February 2014
Sargon, king of Akkad or Mesopotamia, who ruled during the 24th century BCE, is known to have boasted about the greatness of his country’s markets and the splendid trading vessels anchoring in his ports. Among other lands, he proudly mentioned Meluhha, suggesting the social, cultural and economic importance of what we now have reason to believe was Sindh. The ships that called at Sargon’s ports came from the rich and flourishing city ironically known today as Moen jo Daro or Mound of the Dead.
In 1921, the Archaeological Survey of India arrived to investigate the dusty mound for Buddhist remains. They uncovered the Buddhist stupa, all right. But as they probed deeper, they hit upon an urban centre, well-developed and orderly and more ancient than anything Indian archaeologists could expect. Little did they know that investigations during the next two decades would push back the provenance of Moen jo Daro to the 3rd millennium BCE.
Read more »
In 1921, the Archaeological Survey of India arrived to investigate the dusty mound for Buddhist remains. They uncovered the Buddhist stupa, all right. But as they probed deeper, they hit upon an urban centre, well-developed and orderly and more ancient than anything Indian archaeologists could expect. Little did they know that investigations during the next two decades would push back the provenance of Moen jo Daro to the 3rd millennium BCE.
Labels: Archaeology, Book of Days 2014, Discoveries of Empire, Sindh
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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This Very Eden
03 January 2014
In 1826, Charles Masson, a renegade from the army of the East India Company posing as an American, went walkabout across what is now Pakistan. In the vicinity of Chichawatni town, he came upon the village of Haripa [sic] amid a thick jungle. Hard by the village was a series of low mounds crowned by derelict buildings and the remains of a brick castle. Going by Masson’s description, most of the ruins dated to Mughal times or slightly earlier. According to lore, this was an important city, extending some 20 kilometres as far as Chichawatni, destroyed by Providence to punish its evil king.
By the time general-turned-archaeologist Alexander Cunningham came surveying historical sites in 1864, Harappa was extensively pillaged for bricks by locals as well as railway contractors. Disappointed by the absence of Buddhist remains, Cunningham nevertheless published a report featuring the ancient pottery, stone tools as well as a seal showing a feeding bovine topped by a hieroglyphic script never seen before. Neither he nor any of his colleagues could make anything of the seal or its script.
Read more »
By the time general-turned-archaeologist Alexander Cunningham came surveying historical sites in 1864, Harappa was extensively pillaged for bricks by locals as well as railway contractors. Disappointed by the absence of Buddhist remains, Cunningham nevertheless published a report featuring the ancient pottery, stone tools as well as a seal showing a feeding bovine topped by a hieroglyphic script never seen before. Neither he nor any of his colleagues could make anything of the seal or its script.
Labels: Archaeology, Book of Days 2014, Discoveries of Empire, Punjab
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Discoveries of Empire - Book of Days 2014
01 January 2014
In July 1798, the minarets and domes of Cairo emerged shimmering in the heat before the eyes of Napoleon’s troops as they marched south along the Nile River. Some ways away, amid the rock-strewn desert, stood the pyramids. The West was already acquainted with these strange ghosts of the desert that were ancient even when Herodotus wrote his nine-volume Histories in the middle of the 5th century BCE. But little was known about them beyond the fact that they were royal burial sites.
Now, for the first time, these peculiar apparitions became the subject of scientific inquiry, thanks to the 175 ‘learned civilians’ that were part of Napoleon’s train. They came with scientific equipment and a veritable library containing every book, ancient and contemporary, then available in France on the Nile valley.
Just 30 years earlier, German mathematician and cartographer Karsten Niebuhr had already given the West its first relatively well-informed description of the Nile civilization in his book Arabian Journey. Napoleon wished to cap that knowledge.
Labels: Archeology, Book of Days 2014, Discoveries of Empire
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Finds of Empire
29 July 2013
There followed Sites Less Seen (less known historical buildings/sites) and then in 2011 Roads Less Travelled covering twelve passes that had seen history unfolding. Saquib Hanif who heads the PR Department then came up with the idea of Empire legacy. And so, for 2012, we did one called Wheels of Empire, briefly chronicling railway history. This year is Stones of Empire, twelve beautiful buildings either from engineers and architects of the Raj or from our local stone masons who were inspired by foreign building craft.
Read more »Labels: Archeology, Book of Days 2014, Discoveries of Empire, History
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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