page_title: Balkh
section_title: Ancient ruins of Balkh
hierarchical_section_title: Balkh / Main sights / Ancient ruins of Balkh
caption_attribution_description: Hellenistic capital found in the city of Balkh. Musée Guimet. Personal photograph 2006.
context_page_description: Balkh is a town in the Balkh Province of Afghanistan, about 20 km northwest of the provincial capital, Mazar-e Sharif, and some 74 km south of the Amu Darya river and the Uzbekistan border. It was historically an ancient centre of Buddhism, Islam, and Zoroastrianism and one of the major cities of Khorasan, since the latter's earliest history.
  The ancient city of Balkh was known to the Ancient Greeks as Bactra, giving its name to Bactria. It was mostly known as the centre and capital of Bactria or Tokharistan. Marco Polo described Balkh as a "noble and great city". Balkh is now for the most part a mass of ruins, situated some 12 km from the right bank of the seasonally flowing Balkh River, at an elevation of about 365 m.
  French Buddhist Alexandra David-Néel associated Shambhala with Balkh, also offering the Persian Sham-i-Bala as an etymology of its name. In a similar vein, the Gurdjieffian J. G. Bennett published speculation that Shambalha was Shams-i-Balkh, a Bactrian sun temple.
context_section_description: The earlier Buddhist constructions have proved more durable than the Islamic buildings. The Top-Rustam is 46 m (50 yd) in diameter at the base and 27 m (30 yd) at the top, circular and about 15 m (49 ft) high. Four circular vaults are sunk in the interior and four passages have been pierced below from the outside, which probably lead to them. The base of the building is constructed of sun-dried bricks about 60 cm (2.0 ft) square and 100 to 130 mm (3.9 to 5.1 in) thick. The Takht-e Rustam is wedge-shaped in plan with uneven sides. It is apparently built of pisé mud (i.e. mud mixed with straw and puddled). It is possible that in these ruins we may recognize the Nava Vihara described by the Chinese traveller Xuanzang. There are the remains of many other topes (or stupas) in the neighbourhood.
  The mounds of ruins on the road to Mazar-e Sharif probably represent the site of a city yet older than those on which stands the modern Balkh.
caption: Remains of a Hellenistic capital found in Balkh
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-T10", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2006:12:13 20:17:52", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "204", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2837", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "29692", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/20", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "320", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2006:12:13 20:53:42", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2006:12:13 20:53:42", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Tungsten (incandescent light)", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "633/100", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "761", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "923", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "\u0001\u0001\u0001\u0001", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[3, 0, 0, 0]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2696", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}