National Geographic History - 03.2019 - 04.2019

DISCOVERIES

Geography,some historians

identified Ay Khanom as

Alexandria in Oxus. Later

scholarship, however, casts

doubt on this. Although its

original name is still a mys-

tery, it is plausible it was

founded as a garrison town

by one of Alexander’s men.

After Alexander’s death

of his generals, Seleucus,

founder of the Seleucid

empire, and succeeded by

his son, Antiochus I. Later,

local Bactrian kings began

asserting their own rule in

the region, while still iden-

tifying with Greek culture.

These cultures and re-

ligions left their mark on

the city. Inscriptions reveal

Iranian and Bactrian names

alongside Greek ones. The

temple was dedicated to a

deity that combined Zeus

with the Indo-Iranian god

of light, Mithra. Objects

attest to the mingling of

Greek symbols with those

of Zoroastrianism, Hindu-

ism, and Buddhism. But the

city was attracting covet-

ous glances: Circa 145 B.C. it

was sacked by nomads and

later abandoned.

Fortunes of War

War plagued Afghanistan in

the 1980s and ’90s, damag-

ing the site at Ay Khanom. In

2001 the struggle to topple

the Taliban regime raged in

the area. Despite attempts to

salvage the site’s treasures,

many were lost— stolen by

looters or deliberately de-

stroyed by the Taliban.

Fortunately other items

had been secreted away in

bank vaults for safekeep-

ing. Recovered in 2004,

these treasures formed

part of a 2007-08 exhibi-

tion that toured the United

States and Europe. Orga-

nized by the National Geo-

graphic Society, the display

presented to the admiring

gaze of the world the trea-

sures of Ay Khanom once

thought to have been lost

for ever.

—Juan Pablo Sánchez

Thecity’stemplewasdedicatedtoa

eitythatcombinedZeuswiththe

ndo-Iraniangodoflight,Mithra.

After Alexander s death

in 323B.C.,his eastern ter-

ritories were ruledbyone

T

d

In

REFUGE IN THE TEAROOM

In 2001 a French aid agency converted this

tearoom near Ay Khanom into a store in which

to safeguard artifacts from the site that had not

been destroyed by the war or stolen by looters.

KENNETH GARRETT/ALAMY/ACI

DIVINE FOOT, FROM A STATUE OF ZEUS-MITHRA AT AY KHANOM. NATIONAL MUSEUM, KABUL

AKG/ALBUM