Place · Indo-Greek & Kushan cities · Pakistan
Sirkap & Sirsukh
Also known as Taxila — Sirkap & Sirsukh
The two later cities of Taxila (Sirkap, 180-10 BCE, and Sirsukh, 1-5th century CE), successor settlements to the Bhir Mound Mauryan city at ancient Takshashila. Sirkap was founded by the Indo-Greek king Demetrius I (c.180 BCE) and expanded under Menander I (c.165-130 BCE), with a Hellenistic street grid and Mahalla quarters that reflect Greek, Buddhist, Hindu and Zoroastrian coexistence — the Hellenistic Greek Sun temple, the Jain stupa, and the Buddhist chapel all stand within 300 metres on Sirkap's main street. Sirsukh was founded by the Kushan king Kanishka I around 100 CE as a Scythian frontier capital. Alexander Cunningham identified Taxila in 1863; John Marshall's ASI excavations 1913-1934 established the three-city sequence. UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980.
- Function
- Archaeology & heritage
- Tradition
- Taxila archaeological sequence
- Confidence
- Mixed / layered — The place is documented; its associated historical or cultural record and its named tradition are distinct layers.
- Location
- 33.744, 72.824
Connections (1)
- Northwest corridorBalkh
Taxila's three successive cities and Balkh at the Oxus crossing sat on the same corridor, about eight hundred kilometres apart over the Hindu Kush, and the same powers held both in turn — Achaemenid, Greek, Kushan, Sasanian, Hephthalite. Sirkap's grid plan is Hellenistic and its shrines are Buddhist, Jain and Greek together; Balkh's Nava Vihara gave the Barmakid ministers of Baghdad their name. Two ends of one crossing.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Taxila”. Epigraphia Indica and the Annual Reports on Indian Epigraphy (Archaeological Survey of India).
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