Bagram
In 330 BCE, during his military campaigns in Bactria and Central Asia, Alexander of Macedon founded a city fifty miles north of the modern city of Kabul in Afghanistan, at the confluence of the Ghorband and Panjsher Rivers, and named it Alexandria. A few centuries later, due to its position, this military outpost had grown to be a major mercantile emporium on the Silk Road and a Buddhist center, especially under the Kushan dynasty (78–200 CE). The Kushans, a nomadic people, belonged to the Yueh-chih confederation; after having unified all the other Yueh-chih, the Kushans created an empire in present-day north-central Afghanistan and northwestern India. Under the Kushan king Kanisha (c. 78–144 CE), Bactrian Alexandria, now known as Kapisa, became the Kushan summer capital. Rich archaeological discoveries were revealed at the site in the twentieth century.
Probably destroyed in 241 CE by the Iranian Sassanids, Kapisa (modern Bagram; est. pop. 454,000) faced a long period of decline. Deserted by its inhabitants, it became the spring grazing ground for local nomadic tribes. In the 1950s the area, with the Islamic name of Bagram, was selected as a main base for the Afghan air force. Its airport was widely used by the Red Army during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1979–1988). During the subsequent civil war among different Afghan factions, the area was repeatedly conquered and suffered extensive damage. In late 2001 the Bagram airport again became an important base—this time used by U.S. military personnel conducting air strikes against Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
Further Reading
Hackin, Joseph. (1954) Nouvelles recherches archéologiques à Begram, ancienne Kapici, 1939–1940: rencontre de trois civilisations, Inde, Grèce, Chine. Mémoires de la Délégation archéologique franÇaise en Afghanistan. Paris: Impr. Nationale.
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