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An ancient temple dating from the early centuries of Buddhism has been unearth in the Swat Valley in northerly Pakistan — part of the ancient Gandhara region that was conquered byAlexander the Greatand give rise to a admixture of Buddhist belief and Greek art .
archeologist think that the temple date from about the heart of the 2nd century B.C. , at a fourth dimension when Gandhara was ruled by the Indo - Greek kingdom of northerly India , and that it was build above an earlier Buddhistic temple that may have dated from as too soon as the third century B.C.
The temple was discovered by Italian and Pakistani archaeologists on land near the center of Bakirot acquired by the region’s provincial government.(Image credit: ISMEO/Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
That means masses would have built the older temple within a few hundred year of the destruction of the founder of Buddhism , Siddhārtha Gautama , who lived in what is now northern India andNepalbetween about 563 B.C. and 483 B.C.
The excavate persist of the tabernacle found so far , near the center of the modern town of Barikot , are over 10 feet ( 3 meter ) tall and consist of a ceremonial platform topped by a cylindrical structure that housed a conical or dome - work Buddhist repository called a stupa .
The temple complex , which was built and reconstruct several times , also include a modest tope , a electric cell or room for monks , a stairway , the soapbox of a massive pillar or chromatography column , hall room and a public courtyard that looked out onto an ancient road .
The temple was discovered by Italian and Pakistani archaeologists on land near the center of Bakirot acquired by the region’s provincial government.(Image credit: ISMEO/Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
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Radiocarbon dating will base precise date of the structures , but the temple at Barikot is clearly one of the earliest Buddhist monuments ever found in the ancient Gandhara part , Luca Maria Olivieri , an archaeologist at Ca ' Foscari University of Venice and the International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies ( ISMEO ) who lead the dig with Pakistani and Italian colleagues , told Live Science .
Ancient and modern
Italian archaeologists , who have been turn in Swat since 1955 , commence the archeological site at Barikot in 1984 .
Their charge had been to bear on the importantarchaeologyof the urban center by renting vacant realm and excavate as much of it as possible , thereby protect it against urban sprawl and clandestine archaeological excavations that look for to recover artifact to betray in the alien antiquary markets , he said .
Until a few year ago , the mining at Barikot had included the southwest territory of the urban center and the acropolis — but not the metropolis center , where the land rental cost are very high-pitched , he said . ( The land at the Barikot sites is often privately owned , and renting it under terms that allow the excavations is simpler and less expensive than buy it . )
Archaeologists were led to the site in part by pits made by clandestine looters, who hoped to find ancient artifacts that they could sell.(Image credit: ISMEO/Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
But the newly observe temple was found on land gain by the provincial archeological say-so near the inwardness of the metropolis , which enabled the squad to start excavations there in 2019 . colliery made by plunderer had already suggested something important might be swallow there .
" For years , we had been watching what came out of the grounding trenches of innovative houses , farming excavations and the pits left by clandestine dig , " Olivieri said . " [ So ] there were hints that there was a orotund repository there . "
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The temple may be the oldest Buddhist temple even found in the region, and archaeologists think it was built above an even earlier Buddhist monument.(Image credit: ISMEO/Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
The temple was located along an ancient road lead to the ancient city ’s primary Buddhistic monument , a 65 - ft - wide ( 20 m ) stupa that was give away by public works a few years ago ; it is now the situation of an electrical energy pylon .
In accession to the architectural features of the bury temple , archaeologists have discovered more than 2,000 artifacts at the situation , include coins , jewels , seal , pottery bit , stonework and statue , some of which bear ancient inscriptions that can be used to date stamp them , Olivieri state .
Alexandrian conquest
Barikot is mentioned as " Bazira " or " Beira " in Graeco-Roman sources from the time of Alexander the Great , who suppress the already ancient Gandhara realm in 327 B.C. Its name think " the city of Vajra , " referring to an ancient Riley B King mentioned in " The Mahabharata , " a Sanskrit epic verse form that is cogitate to relate events from about the ninth and eighth centuries B.C.
Alexander was the B. B. King of Macedon in Greece , and he take military campaigns east against the Persian Empire from 334 B.C. , staging an intrusion of northwestern India — his farthest subjection — in 326 B.C.
Alexander eventually turned back toward Europe at the demand of his homesick troops , but he died at Babylon in 323 B.C. , probably from a disease such asmalariabut possibly from poisoning . His general then divided up his territories ; the region of Bactria to the magnetic north of Gandhara became prevail by kings of Greek descent , while Gandhara for a fourth dimension regress to native Native American ruler under the Maurya Empire .
The temple also had rooms for monks, vestibules, a staircase, a public courtyard, and a smaller circular stupa that was built later.(Image credit: ISMEO/Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
Olivieri said Buddhism was already present in Gandhara by the sentence of Menander I , a descendent of the Greek B. B. King of Bactria , who build the Indo - Hellenic realm in about 165 B.C. and took over the region , but it may have been limited to the part ’s elites .
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Much of the work of the archaeologists has been to excavate the ancient fortress and another temple at the “acropolis” on the outskirts of Barikot.(Image credit: ISMEO/Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
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Later , Buddhism became much more widespread , and Swat became a sacred center for the faith , especially during the Kushan Empire from about A.D. 30 to A.D. 400 , when Gandhara became famed for the Greco - Buddhist style that portray Buddhist subjects with the technique of Hellenic art .
Swat also has a temperate microclimate , which allows two harvests every yr — in spring and later summertime — so ancient Barikot was an significant substance for the direction of the region ’s agrarian surplus . As a answer , Alexander in all probability used the region as a " tum " to provision his armies before continuing their military political campaign south to India , according to a statement from Ca ' Foscari University of Venice .
At the center of the ancient temple is a ceremonial platform topped by a cylindrical structure that once housed a stupa – a conical or dome-shaped Buddhist monument.(Image credit: ISMEO/Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
Olivieri suppose the Italian archeologic commission had wrap up its latest time of year of digging at Barikot , but the team will return later this class to make further probe of the site and hopefully bring out more of the ancient tabernacle .
Originally put out on Live Science .
Italian archaeologists and colleagues from Pakistan started excavations at Barikot in 1984. The Swat River can be seen here below the acropolis.(Image credit: ISMEO/Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
Thousands of ancient artifacts have been unearthed in the excavations at Barikot, including this face of a Buddha carved in gray schist.(Image credit: ISMEO/Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
