Surkh Kotal

36.0568.566666666667Koordinaten: 36 ° 3 '0 "N, 68 ° 34' 0" E

Surkh Kotal ( Chashma -i Shir, Sar -i Chashma ) is an archaeological site in present-day Afghanistan. There were uncovered during excavations from 1952 remains of a fortress and a handling temple, which is considered one of the models for the later development of the Indian temple. The temple was the kuschanischen ruler Kanishka (r. 100-126 to AD, other datings possible) built and probably served the dynastic cult of Kuschanakönige.

  • 4.1 origin
  • 4.2 model for India

Location

Surkh Kotal is located in the district of Pol-e Chomri the province of Baghlan, 12 ( 18) kilometers north of the Pol-e also Chomri provincial capital above and west of the road that crosses Robatak to the north-west of Mazar -i Sharif. The site is located north of the Hindu Kush Mountains in the wide valley of the Amu Darya, the Oxus flowed as the former through the middle of the historical region of Bactria. Along its shores is growing at this point cereals on fertile, since the age of Kuschanas irrigated farmland. On the slopes predominate soils of sandy loam, gravel and limestone with little vegetation during the summer dry season. In Puli Khumri another temple of the Kushan period was excavated in the 1950s.

Plan

On the bottom paragraph of a hillside location was the long-drawn whole system of five terraces, which rose from the fields of the plane were connected by three wide stairways, each with over 100 levels and a 150- meter long ramp to the central sanctuary on the top, artificially leveled terrace led. The terrace was attached as Acropolis. The 11 by 11 meters large main room ( cella ) of the temple was used to worship fire. The altar stood on a square stone base with a three-level rise at the front in the East and columns at a short distance near the four corners within the room. Base and column bases of limestone, showing Greek influence could be 1952-1953 excavated and prepared. The cella was added to three sides of a corridor approach. The fire temple originally had a roof structure of horizontal wooden beams, which has been replaced by semi-circular arches between the niche walls during renovations in the 3rd or 4th century. The inner cella should thereby have surmounted dealing corridor.

The large yard was protected by a surrounding wall made ​​of mud brick ( Peribolos ) with projections to the outside. In the courtyard open niches of these projections sculptures were erected of limestone, portrait figures, which are interpreted as ancestral gallery, or preparation of the Kushan rulers. Examples are the stone fragment of a man in equestrian garb and a life-size headless stone statue of Kanishka. Other sculptures in clay and plaster are poorly preserved. The inside wall was a row of columns presented, were exposed from the Attic stone bases. In its center was a hole for receiving a wooden post, the one pillar was surrounded from layered clay bricks. The ceiling of the colonnade and the rest of the building consisted of a layer of clay -coated wooden beams. These are designs that are similar to see it today in traditional Afghan houses; flat clay floor ceiling, there were already at multi-storey buildings in Mohenjo -daro.

A smaller fire temple with later angefügtem handling on four sides was located on the south wall of the large courtyard (Temple D) and a third temple was situated outside the city walls. In a kilometer away on the other side of the valley the probable platform of a temple with remains of Kalksteinkapitellen was found. At the place a larger than life statue of Buddha made ​​of clay was worshiped. An existing nearby residential development, which was to the two temples in relationship, can only be guessed.

Excavation history

The temple was excavated from 1952 to 1966 by the French archaeologist Daniel Schlumberger on behalf of the delegation Archeologique Francaise en Afghanistan in the foundations. Further exploration found in the early 1970s held under German management. Illegal excavations on a large scale and the destruction of the Taliban regime in 2001 have left little of the plant left. Not even the 1981/82 declaration was made a UNESCO World Heritage site did not change. Photos from 2003 show that the platform of the fire temple undermined and was sacked.

During the excavations at Surkh Kotal and on numerous other sites in the region collected pottery was provided with the term " Kushan pottery". There have been largely adopted forms of Greek Bactrians, the differences from the Greek ceramics of Ai Khanoum in northern Afghanistan ( Takhar province ) are insignificant. Innovations are certain patterns incised and molded without a potter's wheel pot-bellied pots.

Kanishka inscription

Even more important than pottery, the show as well as the excavated sculptures the Greek influence on the Kushan culture, is found in 1957 by the French first major Bactrian inscription. Your text was published by André Maricq, who could translate some words and phrases, including the name of the Kushan king Kanishka. The inscription is about the founding of a temple by Kanishka, who was abandoned due to lack of water. The temple worship was reintroduced, as in the year 31 of the reign of Kanishka, so the beginning of the reign of his successor Huvishka (early 2nd century ), a well was dug. It is to this day the most important source Bactrian inscriptions later found did not yield much more information. This " Kanishka inscription " contains 25 lines of Greek letters that are written in Bactrian language. It belongs to the earliest written sources of Afghan history and is located in the Kabul museum.

Aged 30 years, ie from the first year of reign Kanishka is an inscription, which was found in 1993 a few kilometers away near the main road on Rabatak pass by Mujahideen at the ruins of a medieval caravanserai. This Rabatak inscription on a 500 -pound stone slab was translated by Nicholas Sims -Williams, a professor at SOAS in London. It was the occasion of the foundation of a temple in Rabatak made ​​that had contained statues of gods and kings, and explains at the beginning that Kanishka introduces the Bactrian language instead of Greek. The list of the dominions belonging cities in North India contained shows the largest at that time expansion of the Kushan Empire. The Acropolis of Rabatak suffered before they could be examined archaeologically, heavy damage from looting.

Dealing Temple

The Kuschanas in the area of Gandhara are considered as a cultural liaison between the Sassanid -Iranian and the Indian space where they coined as the first coins and the pictorial representation of the Buddha introduced. Also on the development of Indian architecture they exerted a decisive influence. In Surkh Kotal and the surrounding area found inscriptions and coins show the Kushan men as supporters of Iranian religions at the same time found in North India Kharoshthi and Brahmi inscriptions leave under King Kanishka followers of Buddhism suspect.

Origin

The basic plan of the central temple dates back to Iran. Dealing temples were already in Iran at the time of the Achaemenids in the 6th known to the 4th century BC, the square is also equipped with four inner columns and open to the east fire temples of Susa, as of the later built under the Parthians Fratadaratempel in Persepolis ( this input with the west). Another model for this design comes from the Greek -influenced of Bactria in the same region: In the lying on the Oxus and Alexander conquered city Ai Khanoum corridors were excavated to central square temple rooms in a residential building in the southern part of the Greek city -conditioning and in a palace. In the Bactrian city Dilberjin in northern Afghanistan, there was a rectangular temple with with input from the broad side, which was begun in the 2nd century BC. The introduction of Buddhist cult images a place was needed for their installation and found in the construction of this temple with.

Model for India

The concept of square dealing temple, as it was found in Surkh Kotal ideally, probably came first to Mathura and was the starting point for Buddhist places of worship in the northern Indian area of ​​origin of this religion. In the following the Kuschanas Gupta Dynasty, the first Hindu temples were built around 500 AD already, the Indian idea of ​​a cult space as a cave ( Garbhagriha ) according as low square rooms ( Temple No. 17 in Sanchi ). The major South Indian temple building developed from the Buddhist temple with together with the also coming from the north high roof top.

Terrace system

From the level of a staircase would easier to centrally lead up to the top platform along the uniformly rising mountain relief. Remains of buildings on the lower terraces are not listed. The terraces produced with massive excavation effort put in the aligned exactly east overall system establishes a cosmic master plan. It creates an artificial mountain, which corresponds in cosmogonic myths of a re-creation of the Urbergs in the center of the world. By the mountain is being edited, repeated the creation and shaping of the world from chaos. Upon exercise of the rites at the altar in the mountain sanctuary, the country will finally incorporated the territory. The symbolism of the cosmic mountain was just as common in ancient Egypt as throughout Asia.

The sacrifice of the altar is a ritual act by which the act of creation is completed later again and again. Sacrifices there to the rock-hewn high altars in Petra, the biblical " altars on the high mountains " (Jeremiah 17, 2) up to the altars of the temple mountains, which have spread to the Indian tradition to Southeast Asia. In Vedic sacrificial texts ( Brahmanas ) is mentioned as the country is formally taken possession of by the fire sacrifice on the altar.

A getreppter base increases the importance of the court system, it is the symbol of spiritual ascent and bridges the separation between the secular and the divine sphere. The first toggle event will take place in front of him and not to him. The base is already part of the holy place, and the rise we head towards the center of the world. The huge terraces are thus to the stage base of the Temple Mount.

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