01/02/2014
Located about 22 kilometers to the west of capital of Pakistan, Islamabad, and about 25 kilometers to the northwest of the city of Rawalpindi, the archaeological complex at Taxila was at one time at the intersection of three great trade routes connecting India, Central Asia, and Western Asia.
Its urban form was developed in the late sixth century BCE, and it flourished from the third century BCE to the seventh century CE. Its decline can be linked to changes in the trade routes and a subsequent population decrease.
It is a vast complex of monasteries, temples, and three separate cities which covers almost ten square kilometers. It was "discovered" by Alexander Cunningham in the late nineteenth century as he traveled throughout India following the pilgrimage routes of the Chinese monks Fa Xian, who traveled through the Indian subcontinent in the fifth century ce (404-414), and Xuan Zang, who did the same in the seventh century ce (630-644).
While Cunningham did not engage in full excavations at Taxila, he did carry out some preliminary digs in and around the area.
But it was the twentieth century British archaeologist Sir John Marshall who did the most extensive work there from 1913 to 1934. His finds were steadily published in his yearly Annual Reports, and in 1951 Marshall re-published his data in a three volume final report now known simply as Taxila. He wrote in his introduction, "in such an excavation there comes a time when the entire body of data has to be re-examined and coordinated, and a comprehensive account of the whole put at the service of archaeologists and historians."
Although there have been various small archaeological digs in the area since the 1951 publication of Taxila, Marshall’s work is by far the most comprehensive archaeological record of the site to date.
In Taxila Marshall identified three separate cities: the earliest, and smallest, was located on Bhir Mound which was the city inhabited by the Achaemenids.
This city had the first wave of Greeks, and was in decline by the end of Mauryan rule. In the late Mauryan period and during Indo-Greek rule, the population moved to Sirkap which soon came under control of both the Indo-Scythians and Indo-Parthians. With the arrival of the Kusanas, the city moved to Sirsukh which, unfortunately, has yet to be adequately excavated.
