A new revised chronology and cultural sequence of the Swat valley, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Pakistan) in the light of current excavations at Barikot (Bir-kot-ghwandai)

Abstract

In 2016 CIRCE and the ISMEO Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan launched a specific project specifically aimed at investigating a cultural phase that had not been previously explored, namely the transition phase between Late Bronze/Early Iron age (1200–800 BCE) and Early-Historic phases (c. BCE 500–80 AD) in the ancient Gandhara region. Current excavations of the key-site of Barikot (Bir-kot-ghwandai), supported by a substantial series of new radiocarbon dates, provide a new, very detailed chronological-cultural framework for the social evolution of ancient Swat after the late Bronze age. Thanks to the radiocarbon data published in this work, for the first time at Barikot it has been possible to discover or better define the Achaemenian, Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek acculturational phases. Barikot is identified with the city of Bazira/Beira mentioned by Alexander’s historians’ and the siege of Alexander the Great, in 327 BCE, falling exactly in one of the identified archaeological frames.