In the 1990's, when the civil war in Afghanistan was still fierce, a series of remarkable findings for Afghan archaeology, especially for historical archaeology, was made. The Buddhist site of the 8th century and accompanying Bactrian inscription unearthed near Tang-e Safedak, a small village lying about 125km west of Bamiyan, are counted among them. The northern Hazarajat, to which this Tang-e Safedak belongs, is one of the least documented areas in Afghanistan. The present paper tries to illuminate the history and geography of this area, investigating fragmental information found in the Arabic, Persian and Chinese sources.
In the beginning of the 16th century, Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur, the founder of the Mughal dynasty, and in the 19th century, a couple of British military officers, travelled from Herat along the Hari Rud river and reached Yakaulang, which is the present center of northern Hazarajat. In the 11th century, Ghaznavid Sultan Mas'ud b. Mahmud seems to have taken the same route when he took flight from Dandanagan where the decisive battle between Ghaznavids and Seljuqs was fought. After travelling through the Hari Rud riverine system, Mas'ud halted at a place called Ribat-e Karvan, which was described as a part of Guzgan and about 7 days journey from Ghazni. The identification of historical Ribat-e Karvan with modern Yakaulang leads us to a general outline of the history of northern Hazarajat from the 7th to the 12th centuries and may be of some help in the further research in the pre and early Islamic history of this area as well as northern Afghanistan.
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