Ritual Deposits and Foundation of Cities in Indo-Greek Gandhara

This paper aims to draw attention to the so-called burial associated with the foundation of the Indo-Greek city wall (ca. 130–115 BCE) at the urban site of Barikot in the Swat valley (NW Pakistan), the mountainous area of the ancient region of Gandhāra. The so-called burial at Barikot is here tentatively interpreted as ritual deposit aiming at legitimising the new idea of ‘city’ implied in the foundation of the city wall. This conjecture is made on the ground of a reassessment of the archaeological evidence for the burial pit at Barikot and in light of the multi-layered social and religious background of the actors involved in the foundation of the Indo-Greek city wall.