GREEK CITIES

Grey River Argus, 1 December 1938, Page 5

GREEK CITIES

TRACED IN AFGHANISTAN.

FINDS IN A MOUNTAIN CAVE; LONDON, October 29.Back in London this week is Mr Evert Barger, the 28-year-old leader of the first British Archaeological expedition into Afghanistan, after an adventurous 2000-mile journey through territory which has rarely been visited by Europeans. The expedition went first to Swat, a tribal territory on the North-West frontier. Here, with the assistance and co-operation of the Wali, they excavated a number of Buddhist shrines, and monastries. The sculptors, reliefs and friezes of Greek art, through the conquests of Alexander, who died in 323 B.C. on the succeeding generations of Buddhist artists.

“Evacuation was carried out under

difficult conditions,” Mr Barger said. "We worked from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. and from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. each day with the day temperature at about 105 degrees. Two of our party lived for some time in a cave on the top of a 6000 ft mountain at what the local shepherds called “the place of the idols.”

In August they set off into Afghanistan. By postal lorry, car and on horseback, they followed the historic silk route through Badakshan, to Bactria.

“The capital of Bactria, Kalkh,” said Mr Barger, “turned out to be' a wilderness of mud walls, of uncertain age. Perhaps our most important single find was at Kunduz, some carved bases of Greek columns. Tnese are the first ancient stonework ever unearthed north of the Hindu Kush. It has always been supposed that the Greek cities of the Bactria were built entirely of mud and sun-dried brick, which had since crumbled and vanished.”