Bagram
Bagram (Also Begram, anciently Kapici or Kapisa) is an antique city 60 kilometers northwest of Kabul in Afghanistan, near today's city of Charikar. It was built at the junction of the Ghorband and the Panjshir valley, acting as a passage point to India on the Silk Road, towards Kabul and Bamiyan.
History
The city was destroyed by Cyrus, restored by Darius, and then fortified and rebuilt by Alexander the Great. ???Begram??? then became one of the capital cities of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom.
Begram (Kapisa) then became the summer capital of the Kushan Empire from the 1st century CE. The emperor Kanishka started many new buildings there.
The city was apparently abandoned after the campaigns of the Sassanian emperor Shapur I, in 241 AD.
Begram has a Greek hippodamian plan. The city was walled in bricks, and reinforced with towers at the angles. The central street was bordered with shops and workshops.
The central palace building yielded a very rich treasure, dated from the time of emperor Kanishka in the 2nd century AD.: ivory-plated stools of Indian origin, lacquered boxes from Han China, Greco-Roman glasses from Egypt and Syria, Hellenistic statues in the Pompean style, stuc moldings, and silverware of Mediterranean origin (probably Alexandria).
Today
As many other historical sites in Afghanistan, Bagram has been looted for old artifacts during the years following the overthrough of the Communist regime.
Today, Bagram hosts the strategic Bagram Airbase from which most US air activity in Afghanistan takes place.
