Chapter Six. Barikot, an indo-greek urban center in Gandhara

In this chapter the excavations at Barikot represent an extremely important contribution. They show that, as for the Bactrian Greeks, as also for the Indo-Greeks. When in 1982 the excavations at the Buddhist sacred area of Saidu Sharif I came to an end, the then director of the Italian Archaeological Mission (ISIAO), Domenico Faccenna, agreed with the present writer that perhaps it was time to again enter the field of urban archaeology, after so many efforts spent on Buddhist art and archaeology. Excavations were resumed in 1998, 1999 and 2000 on the top of the hill, where the most important discovery again takes us back to the field of sacred architecture, this time to an imposing sacred building of the Shahi period. The hill of Bīr-koṭ-ghwaṇḍai rises in the central stretch of the Swat valley, to the West of the modern village, on the left bank of the river. Keywords: Bīr-koṭ-ghwaṇḍai; Barikot; First Century B.C.; Gandhāra; Hellenistic architectonic elements; Indo-Greek city; Italian Archaeological Mission (ISIAO); SaiduSharif; Taxila towers

Ancient city · Ancient history · Archaeology · Art · Buddhism · Excavation · Geography · Greeks · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · Architecture

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