The archeological findings in Mian Khan Village, close to Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are a reminder of our ancestral ties, and hold the key to the story of the evolution of our society. The present, and all of the things that are good, bad or in between, have stemmed from a chain of consequences that can never fully be traced, but exist nonetheless, and have shaped all of us into who we are today.
South East Asia has a history that goes beyond partition, and pushes even further back than the Mughal era. How have we preserved that history? How have we dignified our own heritage? Some of the country’s oldest and most historically valuable sites and buildings are practically falling apart. As one of the oldest inhabited regions on the planet, in an area that stretched from Afghanistan to Northwest India, the subsequent influx of other cultures over the course of a millennia, have shaped all the different cultures that are present today, in both Pakistan and our neighboring countries. This has meant, naturally, a great wealth of history that we have usually been unable or unwilling to preserve and protect.
The archeologists working out of the Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan discovered a number of relics as old as 190 BC, in a month long excavation project, that has now been extended due to the success of the findings. Reportedly, the excavation site was part of a city called Mora from the Aryan period. Such projects must be encouraged and funded to a greater degree. Archeological ventures are not purely recreational activities, they trace the very roots of our cultural and human development, and are an education we could all do to learn from.