Cheshm-e-Shafa, the City of the Unbelievers

Photo: AP

Cheshm-e-Shafa is an importance place arqueólogica in the Balh region, to the north of Afghanistan. The excavations indicate that he has been inhabited at least from the IVth century aC, when the region was governed by a Persian dynasty, which disappeared after the Greeks of Alejandro Magno conquered the country.

A Korean construction firm is constructing a highway that happens over the archaeological place. A few days ago, French archaeologists who work there have put themselves in front of the machines to prevent the place from being devastated.

The French archaeological delegation in Afghanistan makes sure that the Korean engineers have said that they would use dynamite to construct the highway across the gorge where the deposit is. According to the archaeologists, it might turn the tracing away to the east, but the constructor does not want.

Photo: AP

Nobody doubts that Afghanistan has desperate need to reconstruct his infrastructures, but his historical patrimony has been devastated for three decades of war and plundering. The Afghan laws prohíben the destruction of archaeological places.

For years, the settlers have excavated the Cheshm-e-Shafa hills in search of pottery and coins to sell antiquities traffickers and have left the place full of holes. But now they work for the archaeologists. They call to the place the City of the Unbelievers.

After the step of Alejandro Magno, the place lost his importance and turned into a desert after the Mongols were devastating the area in the XIIIth century.

Route: Orbis Quintus
L.A. Steal (http://articles.latimes.com/2008/aug/31/world/fg-dig31plr
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/5685992/Ancient-settlement-could-be-bulldozed.html)

Category: Archaeology, The Route of the Silk

Tags: afganistan, it was grasping head office, Buddhism, engineering, Islam