Aerial View of Mundigak
"Jean-Marie [Casal] pointed. 'There in front you see Siah Sang Pass—that is, Black Stone Pass.'
"We had turned north towards a line of low, black mountains splashed with one white patch.
Mundigak Mound and Tent
"The whole district was known as Kar Karez and the track eventually took us through a village called Mundigak, the name Jean-Marie had borrowed for the mound.
Monumental Terrace and Carved Head, Mundigak
One of the most exciting developments in recent times has been new chronologies of Mundigak, interesting because they put the palace and head in this picture before the height of the ancient Indus civilization.
Mundigak Palace
A decade later, after excavating the pre-Indus site of Amri in Sindh, Jean-Marie Casal published the book La Civilisation d l'Indus et ses enigmes [The Indus Civilization and its Puzzles] (1969). In the section Mundigak becomes a small town he wrote:
Mundigak Palace II
"We must therefore consider the ‘ramparts’ as monumental structures in much the same way as the ‘palace’ and ‘temple’ are, part of an overall monumentalisation of Mundigak that marks Period IV.
Mundigak Head and the "Priest King"
What are the similarities between these this white limestone head found at Mundigak in southern Afghanistan and the so-called "Priest King" from Mohenjo-daro?
Massimo Vidale offers a fascinating conjectural yet evidence-based discussion in his
Painted Bowl
This painted bowl at the Guimet is from the Mundigak IV period, 2900-2400 BCE and involves some elaborate and very finely painted designs that could be an abstraction of the pipal leaf, sacred or of great reverence to Mundigak and Indus cultures.
Pipal Leaf Goblet
"These balloon glasses are characteristic of the urban period [Period IV]. Most often, their decor includes either rows of caprids with an elongated body and hatching in the Iranian style of Susa II, or leaves of the pipal tree so frequent in the
Pipal Leaf Goblet
A painted goblet from Mundigak IV, dated from approximately 2500-2000 BCE. Note the stylized design accompanying the pipal leaf, also seen on the painted bowl opening this series.
Bridget and Raymond Allchin describe "the emergence of a Baluchistan
Painted Bowl
A Mundigak III (3400-2900 BCE) bowl.
J.F. Jarrige writes in The Early Architectural Traditions of Greater Indus as Seen from Mehrgarh, Baluchistan "Work conducted at Mehrgarh has clearly shown that the cultural assemblage of the preurban phases of