The Archaeology of Afghanistan ― From Earliest Times to the Timurid Period

About the editors:
Original edition edited by Raymond Allchin and Norman Hammond
Revised and updated edition edited by Warwick Ball with Norman Hammond

Afghanistan is at the cultural crossroads of Asia, where the great civilisations of Mesopotamia and Iran, South Asia and Central Asia overlapped and sometimes conflicted. Its landscape embraces environments from the high mountains of the Hindu Kush to the Oxus basin and the great deserts of Sistan; trade routes from China to the Mediterranean, and from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea cross the country. It has seen the development of early agriculture, the spread of Bronze Age civilisation of Central Asia, the conquests of the Persians and of Alexander of Macedon, the spread of Buddhism and then Islam, and the empires of the Kushans, Ghaznavids, Ghurids and Timurids centred there, with ramifications across southern Asia. All of which has resulted in some of the most important, diverse and spectacular historical remains in Asia.

First published in 1978, this was the first book in English to provide a complete survey of the immensely rich archaeological remains of Afghanistan. The contributors, all acknowledged scholars in their field, have worked in the country, on projects ranging from prehistoric surveys to the study of Islamic architecture. It has now been thoroughly revised and brought up to date to incorporate the latest discoveries and research.

F. R. Allchin (1923-2010) was one of the foremost British archaeologists in South Asian archaeology. A member of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge, since 1963, he retired in 1989 as Emeritus Reader in South Asian Archaeology at Cambridge.

Norman Hammond is a Senior Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at Cambridge University. His fieldwork includes the first survey of the Helmand Valley in southern Afghanistan in 1966, as well as projects in North Africa, Central and South America.

Warwick Ball is a Near Eastern archaeologist who has carried out excavations, architectural studies and monumental restoration in Afghanistan (where he was Acting Director of the British Institute of Afghan Studies), Iran, Iraq (Director of Excavations of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq), Jordan, Libya and Ethiopia.