Sunday, August 4, 2013

Bala Hissar: (Bala = Elevated...Hissar = Fort)

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"Bala Hissar is an ancient fortress located in the city of Kabul, Afghanistan. The estimated date of construction is around the 5th century A.D. Bala Hissar sits to the south of the modern city centre at the tail end of the Kuh-e-Sherdarwaza Mountain. The Walls of Kabul, which are 20 feet (6.1 m) high and 12 feet (3.7 m) thick, start at the fortress and follow the mountain ridge in a sweeping curve down to the river. It sports a set of gates for access to the fortress.....Bala Hissar was originally divided into two parts: The lower fortress, containing the stables, barracks and three royal palaces, and the upper fortress (the actual fort with the name Bala Hissar) .....The old seat of royal power, a fortress has stood on the site of the Bala Hissar since the 5th century AD, and quite possibly before. It sits at the foot of the Koh-e Shir Darwaza mountains, guarding the southwestern approaches to Kabul.....The old seat of royal power, a fortress has stood on the site of the Bala Hissar since the 5th century AD, and quite possibly before. It sits at the foot of the Koh-e Shir Darwaza mountains, guarding the southwestern approaches to Kabul."

Bala Hissar (Pashto/Urdu/Persian: قلعه بالا حصار‎) is one of the most historic places of Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pakistan. The word Bala Hissar is from Dari Persian, meaning, “elevated or high fort”.......http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bala_Hissar,_Peshawar

"Balkh: Bala Hissar (Citadel).....
Achaemenid, 6th-4th century BC.....
Graeco-Bactrian, 3rd-mid 1st century BC.....
Kushan, 1st century BC–3rd century AD.....
Sassanian, 3rd-7th century.....
Turk, early Islamic, 7th-12th century.....
Timurid, 15th century.....

Balkh, Bala Hissar, Timurid walls

"The crumbling walls encircling the fortress area were built for the most part in the Timurid period upon earlier foundations which may date back to the early Kushan period, 1st century AD. The great knot of ruins to the east of this ruin was the ancient Arg, or Citadel. The entire site is extensivly pockmarked with looters holes."...http://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/afgh05-017.html

"Balkh (ancient Paktra or Baktra or Bactria), a UNESCO World Heritage Site candidate (2004), is an urban site of some 11 square kilometers, situated 21 kilometers west of Mazar-i Sharif and 74 kilometers south of the Amu Darya (Oxus) River, which ran close to the city during antiquity. Reputedly the birthplace of Zoroaster, Bactria was for a long time the spiritual center for the Zoroastrian religion and was said to have rivaled urban centers such as Babylon. Accounts of visitors to Balkh in ancient times include Alexander the Great, a succession of Graeco Bactrian kings, pilgrims, countles Silk Road traders and pilgrims attracted by the many Buddhist monasteries in the Balkh region during the 4th-7th centuries, Genghis Kahn (who sacked the city 1220), Marco Polo (who declared Balkh a "noble city and great" in 1271) and Timur (who destroyed the city again in 1370). Accounts from the 10th century AD onward indicate that Balkh was ringed with earthen walls, within which stood a fine citadel, mosque and other buildings necessary for Balkh to become an important trading center (a necessary stop on the Silk Road with links to India and China) and a center of education (in 980 AD the philosopher-scientist Ibn Sina was born in Balkh, as was the poet Ferdowsi). Those same earthen walls can still be seen over a length of some 10 kilometres, to the north of which lies a secondary fortified area, the Bala Hissar. Other notable sites needing protection in or near Balkh include the tiled Timurid-era Shrine of Khwãja Abu Nasr Parsa, the Samanid-style Haji Piyadi (No Gumbad) Mosque from the second half of the 9th century, and the 17th century Madrasa of Sayyid Subhan Quli Khan located in Balkh City, the Khwaja Aghacha Mosque located some three kilometers to the south, and farther south, the Buddhist monastery Takht-i Rustam and the associated stupa of Tepe Rustam, of which an earth-brick base, 40 meters in diameter, still survives. See also the Minaret of Zadyan. Looting at Balkh since 2001 has been extensive.".....http://www.cemml.colostate.edu/cultural/09476/afgh05-017.html

"One of the most important and intriguing crossroads of various cultures is the city of Balkh. Never heard of it? Today it is a minor provincial town in remote parts of Afghanistan. Once, though, it was – with only a little exaggeration - the spiritual centre of the world. The Greeks had known it as the city of Bactria or Bactra – it was an illustrious centre of Hellenic learning and a place where Greek knowledge cross-fertilized with learning from the Indian sub-continent and to some extent from China as well. Then, for many centuries, on top of its Hellenic heritage, and Zoroastrian influence before that, Balkh became an important centre of early Buddhist monasticism. Then Islam arrived and under Muslim rule the city became a centre of Islamic learning. It was thus a melting pot of diverse spiritual systems. It is geographically remote and yet, across the ages, it had become a meeting place for Greeks, Persians, Indians, Arabs, Turks and others, and it developed a reputation as a centre of cross-cultural esoteric thought. As a city, Balkh was rich but never powerful – its power and influence was spiritual and intellectual, not political.".......http://paradisereporter.blogspot.com/2012/05/all-roads-lead-to-balkh.html

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….August 2013

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