Whereas, during the Hindu Shahi rule in Swat the name of this place was Vajirasthana¬¬ – written on a 9th century inscription discovered on the Barikot hill (now on exhibit in Lahore Museum). In Pakistan, many archaeology students, if not all, know about Bazira, but very few amongst those have heard about Vajirasthana. However, in many academic publications, Barikot has been written as Bir-Kot-local pronunciation of Barikot. Since 1968, the Italian Archaeological Mission to Swat has been working at Barikot. Italian archaeologists have conducted archaeological surveys and carried out excavations at large scale so as to bring out the facts of this important settlement of Gandhara Civilization. To date, more than 13 trenches have been dug out in different areas, in the south, southwest and on top of the hill. In the first phase of excavation in 1984-1992, Piero Francesco Callieri, Anna Filigenzi and Luca Maria Olivieri tried their spades and opened five trenches in south and southwest of the hill. However, several more trenches have been cut out since the late 1990s both on the hill and the lower town. Elisa Irori are busy in exposing the structural remains of monumental Shahi Temple on the hill-I am also part of this campaign.īarikot is the best example of town-planning of ancient Gandhara. There are remains of houses, monumental buildings, and Stupas at Barikot. For the monuments in the acropolis includes one 8th century monumental Shahi Temple beautifully decorated with stucco, Shahi Castle and Turreted Temple. And for the buildings in the lower town there are, among others, three Buddhist sacred buildings and many public buildings, remains of fortification having rectangular bastions, cells and Buddhist sanctuaries. All the structures at the site give a sense of city life in ancient Swat.Īnother striking feature of Barikot which distinguish it from other ancient cities of Gandhara is its long occupational history. Discovery of the protohistoric village, Indo-Greek fortification, Sytho-Parthian structures, Kushano-Sasanian settlement, Hephthalite coin, Shahi castle and temples and Islamic symbols show that the site was occupied for a long time (c.1700-1400 BCE to 15th CE).
0 kommentar(er)
