-1 101 Z A small settlement at Taxila was abandoned when the Indus civilization collapsed, but the valley was resettled around 1000 BC. When the Gandhara region became a part of the Persian Empire in 517 BC, Taxila developed into a town. Although the location of the town shifted periodically over the next thousand years, the valley enjoyed unbroken pre-eminence, due to its key situation at the cross-roads of major trade routes east, west and south. In addition the valley became a major religious centre, with many monasteries and shrines.
# Taxila - opening PW
16 102 A A pillared hall was probably a temple in Mauryan times (3rd century BC). Opposite it was a small shop selling terracotta reliefs of male and female deities that were popular votive offerings.
#Bhir Mound in Mauryan times
20 101 X A commemorative stupa-(mound) and monastery were erected on this spot where Kunala, son of Ashoka, was said to have been blinded on the orders of his wicked stepmother. Kunala and Ashoka before him resided here as viceroys for this important northern Mauryan province.
#Kunala stupa
32 101 X In 189 BC the Taxila region fell to the Greek rulers of nearby Bactria, who built a new city of Taxila, (Sirkap), in Greek chessboard style. It was a flourishing cosmopolitan mercantile and cultural centre under the Greeks and their Iranian and Central Asian successors, from the 2nd century BC to 2nd century AD.
#Sirkap
22 101 X An inner fortification wall separates the lower town from the acropolis in which one of the city's palaces was found, with public apartments and private chambers.
#Sirkap acropolis
38 101 X Shortly after settling in the valley, the Kushans built a new city (Sirsukh), in the shape of a parallelogram. It flourished from the 2nd to the 5th centuries AD. Little is known of its buildings as modern occupation has greatly restricted excavation here.
#Sirsukh
35 101 X A violent earthquake devastated Taxila in the 1st century BC, flattening the multi-storey houses. They were rebuilt in a more earthquake-resistant style, with partially sunken rooms and reinforced masonry.
#Sirkap earthquake
36 103 B The town's streets were lined with prosperous houses and the shrines of many denominations - Jain, Buddhist, Zoroastrian and perhaps Christian. The local Gandharan art style reflects the city's cosmopolitan nature.
#Sirkap town
40 101 X A stupa (relic mound) dedicated by the emperor Ashoka was later greatly enlarged by the Kushans, becoming the focus of Buddhist worship. The Kushans also founded many Buddhist monasteries in the valley, liberally endowing them.
#Dharmarajikstupa
43 101 X Five massacred victims by the side of the Dharmarajika stupa eloquently reflect the city's troubled history as do numerous finds scattered through the valley of personal treasures hastily buried and never retrieved. The area finally fell to a savage Hun invasion in 460 AD from which it never recovered.
#Dharmarajikastupa skeletons
37 103 D This temple of the 2nd-1st century BC follows the plan of a standard Greek temple but also has a large platform which may have supported a tower. It has been suggested that this was a Zoroastrian fire temple.
#Jandial
44 101 X A caravanserai outside the city walls accommodated travellers from many lands, along the three great routes that converged on Taxila: Across Persia to the western world, through Himalayan passes eastwards to China, and down the Great North Road southwards into the heart of India.
#Caravanserai
##18 101 X Taxila was the major city of Gandhara, part of the richest satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire. It was visited by Alexander the Great in 326 BC but after his death fell to the expanding Mauryan Empire under Chandragupta Maurya. Most of the excavated buildings in the 6th-2nd century BC settlement (the Bhir Mound) belong to the Mauryan period.
