Aq Kupruk | |
|---|---|
  Aq Kupruk Location in Afghanistan | |
| Coordinates: 36°5′0″N66°50′0″E / 36.08333°N 66.83333°E | |
| Country |  Afghanistan |
| Province | Balkh Province |
| Time zone | + 4.30 |
Aq Kupruk is a village in Balkh Province in northern Afghanistan. [1]
Aq Kupruk | |
|---|---|
| Aq Kupruk Location in Afghanistan | |
| Coordinates: 36°5′0″N66°50′0″E / 36.08333°N 66.83333°E | |
| Country | Afghanistan |
| Province | Balkh Province |
| Time zone | + 4.30 |
Aq Kupruk is a village in Balkh Province in northern Afghanistan. [1]
Aq Kupruk is also an archaeological site consisting of four sites, numbered I, II, III and IV.
Finds included an extensive and sophisticated stone tool industry, very early stone sculpture, domesticated sheep and goat remains, fragments of beaten copper from the ceramic Neolithic, many projectile points, terracotta and simple jewellery.
Collections:
Field-work:
The ancient history of Afghanistan, also referred to as the pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan, dates back to the prehistoric era and the Indus Valley civilization around 3300–1300 BCE. Archaeological exploration began in Afghanistan in earnest after World War II and proceeded until the late 1970s during the Soviet–Afghan War. Archaeologists and historians suggest that humans were living in Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the region were among the earliest in the world. Urbanized culture has existed in the land from between 3000 and 2000 BC. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages have been found inside Afghanistan.
The Kushan Empire was a syncretic empire formed by the Yuezhi in the Bactrian territories in the early 1st century. It spread to encompass much of what is now Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Northern India, at least as far as Saketa and Sarnath, near Varanasi, where inscriptions have been found dating to the era of the Kushan emperor Kanishka the Great.
The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) is the modern archaeological designation for a particular Middle Bronze Age civilization of southern Central Asia also known as the Oxus Civilization. The civilization's urban phase or Integration Era, was dated in 2010 by Sandro Salvatori to c. 2400–1950 BC, but a different view is held by Nadezhda A. Duvoba and Bertille Lyonnet, c. 2250–1700 BC.
The Indo-Parthian Kingdom was a Parthian kingdom founded by Gondophares, and active from 19 CE to c. 226 CE. At their zenith, they ruled an area covering parts of eastern Iran, various parts of Afghanistan and the northwest regions of the Indian subcontinent. The rulers may have been members of the House of Suren, and the kingdom has even been called the "Suren Kingdom" by some authors.
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Ahmad Hassan Dani FRAS, SI, HI was a Pakistani archaeologist, historian, and linguist. He was among the foremost authorities on Central Asian and South Asian archaeology and history. He introduced archaeology as a discipline in higher education in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Throughout his career, Dani held various academic positions and international fellowships, apart from conducting archaeological excavations and research. He is particularly known for archaeological work on pre-Indus civilization and Gandhara sites in Northern Pakistan.
Margiana is a historical region centred on the oasis of Merv and was a minor satrapy within the Achaemenid satrapy of Bactria, and a province within its successors, the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian empires.
The Kidarites, or Kidara Huns, were a dynasty that ruled Bactria and adjoining parts of Central Asia and South Asia in the 4th and 5th centuries. The Kidarites belonged to a complex of peoples known collectively in India as the Huna, and in Europe as the Chionites, and may even be considered as identical to the Chionites. The 5th century Byzantine historian Priscus called them Kidarite Huns, or "Huns who are Kidarites". The Huna/Xionite tribes are often linked, albeit controversially, to the Huns who invaded Eastern Europe during a similar period. They are entirely different from the Hephthalites, who replaced them about a century later.
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Surkh Kotal (Persian: چشمه شیر Chashma-i Shir; also called Sar-i Chashma, is an ancient archaeological site located in the southern part of the region of Bactria, about 18 kilometres north of the city of Puli Khumri, the capital of Baghlan Province of Afghanistan. It is the location of monumental constructions made during the rule of the Kushans. Huge temples, statues of Kushan rulers and the Surkh Kotal inscription, which revealed part of the chronology of early Kushan emperors were all found there. The Rabatak inscription which gives remarkable clues on the genealogy of the Kushan dynasty was also found in the Robatak village just outside the site.
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Darra-e Kūr or Bābā Darwīsh, is an archaeological site in Badakhshan province in Afghanistan. It is situated just northeast of Kalafgān near the village of Chinār-i Gunjus Khān 63 km (39.1 mi) east of Taloqan, on the road to Faizabad. The cave is situated atop the side of the valley near the hamlet of Bābā Darwīsh.
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The Helmand culture, c. 3300–2350 BCE, is a Bronze Age culture that flourished mainly in the middle and lower valley of the Helmand River, in southern Afghanistan and eastern Iran, predominantly in the third millennium BCE.
Yemshi Tepe, also Emchi-Tepe or Imshik, is an ancient circular fortress in Afghanistan, 5 kilometers to the northeast of the city of Sheberghan.It is about 100 kilometers west of Balkh, the capital of ancient Bactria.
Tapa Shotor, also Tape Shotor or Tapa-e-shotor, was a large Sarvastivadin monastery near Hadda, Afghanistan, and is now an archaeological site. According to archaeologist Raymond Allchin, the site of Tapa Shotor suggests that the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara descended directly from the art of Hellenistic Bactria, as seen in Ai-Khanoum.
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