One of oldest Buddhist temples discovered in Swat
WeirdNews
One of oldest Buddhist temples discovered in Swat
SWAT (Web Desk) – An ancient Buddhist temple has been discovered in the Swat Valley.
Archaeologists believe that the temple dates from about the middle of the second century B.C., when Gandhara was ruled by the Indo-Greek kingdom.
The temple found near Barikot is over 10 feet tall and includes a ceremonial platform topped by a cylindrical structure that housed a conical or dome-shaped Buddhist monument called a stupa.
Luca Maria Olivieri, an archaeologist at Ca Foscari University of Venice and the International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies (ISMEO) who led the excavations with Pakistani and Italian colleagues told, “Radiocarbon dating will establish precise dates of the structures, but the temple at Barikot is clearly one of the earliest Buddhist monuments ever found in the ancient Gandhara region.”
