Taxila

Taxila or Takshashila is a city in the Pothohar region of Punjab, Pakistan. Located in the Taxila Tehsil of Rawalpindi District, it lies approximately 25 kilometres (16 mi) northwest of the Islamabad–Rawalpindi metropolitan area and is just south of the Haripur District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Old Taxila was for a time the capital city of ancient Gandhāra, situated on the eastern shore of the Indus River—the pivotal junction of the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia; it was founded around 1000 BCE. Some ruins at Taxila date to the time of the Achaemenid Persian Empire.

Quotes

• Recent excavations at Taxila have pushed back the history of the ancient settlement by another six centuries to the neolithic age. Earlier, artifacts collected by Sir John Marshal had dated Taxila back to 518 BC. The new study also indicates the existence of cities in the valley between 1200 BC and 1100 BC. Potsherds and other terracottas, found at the lowest occupational level, 15 feet in depth, is the main evidence of the latest discovery which establishes that Taxila and the Indus Valley Civilization settlements of Mohenjodaro and Harappa existed almost simultaneously. Sir John, who excavated several Taxila sites between 1913 and 1934, had found four occupational levels. The latest study has unearthed six occupational levels which have been listed afresh as pre-Achaemenian, Achaemenian, Macedonian, Mauriyan, Bactarian Greek and Scythian. Archaeology Department and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, have also found for the first time an intergrated drainage system comprising open as well as covered drains. The discovery of several wells also establishes that fresh water was used for cooking and bathing.
  • Taxila 600 years older than earlier believed. In DAWN, a newspaper in Karachi, on June 2, 2002, report by Mahmood Zaman. quoted in Kazanas, N. (2003). Final reply: Indo-Aryan migration debate. Journal of Indo-European studies, 31(1-2), 187-240.