Aï Khanoum
The town of Aï Khanoum, on the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan, is better known to Western audiences, and its documentation is certainly more accessible [1]. It was excavated from 1964 to 1978 by the DAFA (Délégation archéologique française en Afghanistan) under the direction of Paul Bernard. After excavation was interrupted by events in Afghanistan, the site was completely looted. Some of the objects that most probably originated there have appeared on the antiquities market and have been published. Assuming that excavation can be resumed one day, it could only concern small sectors.
The chronology now accepted by the team responsible for the publication places the foundation around 290-280, probably on the initiative of Antiochos I, co-regent of his father Seleucus, and the end of Greek occupation at the time of the assassination of the Greco-Bactrian king Eucratide I (c. 171-144), who had refounded the city under the name of Eucratidia, no doubt to make it his principal capital. During this last phase, the city underwent major rebuilding, some of which remained unfinished; in particular, the palace area, whose previous appearance is poorly known, was built. These major developments were therefore more or less contemporaneous with Nisa's great building period. For this reason, and because the excavators' thinking was nourished by the experience of those in the Parthian city, it seems justified to approach the study of Aï Khanoum after it. Admittedly, Old Nisa and Aï Khanoum are on a completely different scale (the intramural surface area is nine times greater), but we shall see in the following lectures that certain problems arise in a similar way, notably the dual nature of the urban ensemble.
