Site of Tillya Tepe (Golden Mound). Near Shibarghan, Jauzjan Province. (original) (raw)
July 1997
The Bactrian city of Ai Khanoum lay under the ashes of fires set ca. 130 BCE by invading Yueh-chih nomads. But what happened after the Bactrian kings decamped and before the next glorious period in the 2nd century CE when the Kushans, part of the Yueh-chich confederation, rose to power? The 450- meter- high mound called Yemshi Tepe, five kilometers north-east of Shibarghan, looked promising, but Soviet-Afghan excavations determined it dated from the 1st to the 4th centuries CE, centuries after the Bactrians left. Half a kilometer away, however, this hillock locally called Tillya Tepe (Golden Mound), barely 3 meters high and 100 meters in diameter, held many answers concerning the empty void from 100 CBE and 100 CE.
Photo: Jonathan Lee.
Filename
PL-97-44.jpg
Copyright
acku Afghanistan
Image Size
6412x4246 / 7.6MB
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