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Surkh Kotal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Daniel Schlumberger
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Until 1951,th e great archaeological site we now call Surkh Kotal had completely escaped notice. In the autumn of that year, a friend of mine, Sarwar Nasher Khān, informed me that some stones bearing Greek letters had just been found in Northern Afghanistan by a team of workers engaged in building a new road. A few weeks later, we visited the site. It lay some 15 km. to the north-west of Pul-i Khumri, and some 12 km. to the south of Baghlān, two modem industrial centres in the valley of the Kunduz River. Having asked for the find spot, we were shown a ruined structure bordering the new road, at the bottom of a hill (henceforth called ‘ the acropolis ’) projecting like a promontory into the valley, and we could see at once that this structure was but a part of a large fortified enclosure of irregular shape following the contours of the hill-area. Inside this enclosure could be seen a smaller rectangular enclosure, the centre of which was occupied by a large flat-topped mound. Several architectural fragments were lying about. They were made of the local limestone. They included two big column-bases, and what appeared to be the remains of a mighty stele in alto-relievo, 2.20 m. high. Inquiring about the name of the place, we got several contradictory answers, two things only being clear : (1) that the place was a ‘ Kafir Kala ’, a ‘ Heathen’s Castle ’; and (2) that the saddle or pass connecting the hill with the mountains further west was called Surkh Kotal, ‘ The Red Pass ’. In fact the ruin was anonymous, but ‘ Heathen’s Castle, of the Red Pass ’ could be considered a suitable name. We shortened it into ‘ Surkh Kotal ’, ‘ The Red Pass ’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 33 , Issue 130 , June 1959 , pp. 81 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1959

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References

* The success of our excavations is very largely to be attributed to the friendly co-operation of the Afghan people. Were it not for an enterprising engineer who saved the inscribed stones when they were first discovered, or for Sarwar Nasher Khān, who reported the discovery, it is unlikely that we should ever have heard of Surkh Kotal. Without the enlightened care of their Excellencies Abdul Mejid Khān and Ali Ahmad Popal Khan, successive Ministers for Education, Ismail Khan and Mohammad Juma Khan, successive Governor-Generals of Kataghãn, without the active support of Ahmad Ali Khan Kohzad and Abdul Rahim Khan Ziaï, successive directors of the Department of Antiquities, nothing could ever have been achieved. Last but not least we always had with us a team of young assistants from the Kabul Museum, who were a great help.

1 The antique name of the place, Bagolango, has been recognized by W. B. Henning (BSOAS, 1956, p. 366) in one of the first inscriptions, and his brilliant conjecture has been entirely confirmed by later discoveries.

2 Preliminary reports of the first campaigns are to be found in the Journal Asiatique, 1952, pp. 433–53; 1954, pp. 161–205; 1955. pp. 269–79. The second of these reports includes the publication by M. Raoul Curielof the epigraphic documents found up to 1953. A brief account of the fourth, fifth and sixth campaigns has been given in the Comptes-Rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions, 1957 pp. 176–81. The publication by Mr André Maricq of the epigraphic documents found from 1954 to 1957, including the great inscription of Kanishka, is soon to appear in the same periodical. Short articles in English have been published in Archaeology, 6, pp. 232–8, and 8, pp. 82–7. The results of the ninth campaign, which has just ended (December 1958), have not been taken into account here; an unexpected new discovery has been made for which we cannot yet offer an explanation.

3 Up to now all the epigraphic fragments from Surkh Kotal are in that language.

4 They must have been Buddhist figures. Proof of the Buddhist character of the platform is provided by one of the Corinthian capitals showing amidst its foliage a small turban on a draped socle ; unquestionably the headgear of the Boddhisattva, see Journal Asiatique, 1955, p. 277, and now I. Lyons and H. Ingholt, Gandhãran Art in Pakistan, New York, 1957, p. 61, no. 50.

5 The links with the art of Parthia are of great interest, but require a more detailed study than could be given in these short pages.

6 Whether the ‘platform in. the fields’, the only Buddhist monument known so far at Surkh Kotal (above p. 84), should be considered contemporary with the ruins on the acropolis or somewhat later, remains a problem, but recent research (1958) rather tends to show it to be later.

7 To give just one instance, the bronze statue of Shami (Susiana), aptly compared by H. Seyrig with a statue of Palmyra (Syria, XX, 1939, p. 180; XXI, 1940, p. 33a), is no less akin in style to some of the Buddhas of Gandhâra.

8 That great unity actually reaches much further than Gandhâra towards the East, much further than Mesopotamia towards the West; it extends from Palmyra to Mathurã, from the Syrian steppe to the plains of the Ganges, as is already shown with perfect clarity by H. Seyrig, ‘Ornamenta Palmyrena Antiquiora’, Syria, XII, 1940, pp. 277–328 (reprinted, with some corrections, in Antiquités Syriennes, ta, pp. 64–115).