Archaeology Odyssey, July/August 2001
Features
Alexander the Great never reached his goal of conquering all the inhabited earth. This was simply beyond his army’s endurance. But he did get as far east as ancient Bactria, in modern Afghanistan. More than two thousand years later, archaeologists have begun to recover evidence of Greek settlers Alexander left behind at a […]
In the 19th century, officers of the British Raj began to collect large quantities of ancient Indian statuary, often hauling away dozens of camel loads from a single site. Some of the most intriguing carvings came from a territory called Gandhara, in far northwestern India between the Indus and Kabul rivers. Gandharan statues and […]
Legendary Bamiyan! As our car neared the valley, I had no idea what to expect. Afghanistan and its friendly people promised a magnificent climax to the 18 months I had spent in Asia in 1969 and 1970. It was an up-and-down ride, crossing three or four high passes. Eventually ruined forts, villages and […]
The Arab historians and geographers who accompanied the Muslim invaders of northwestern Africa in the middle of the seventh century C.E. said it was like a large island—surrounded on the north and east by the Mediterranean Sea, on the west by the Atlantic Ocean, and on the south by a sea of sand, the […]