Ai-Khanoum
 | This article does not have any sources. (March 2025) |
Ai-Khanoum is a Hellenistic city found in Takhar Province, Afghanistan. The city, whose original name is unknown, was probably started by an early king of the Seleucid Empire. It became an important place for the kings of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, where they managed their army and trade. The city was destroyed around 145 BC. The ruins of the city were excavated by a French team of archaeologists in 1961 until the outbreak of conflict in Afghanistan in the late 1970s.
The city was likely built between 300 and 285 BC by an official acting on the orders of Seleucus I Nicator or his son Antiochus I Soter, the first two kings of the Seleucid dynasty. There is a possibility that the area might have been used earlier by the Achaemenid Empire, who built a small fort nearby. Ai-Khanoum was originally thought to have been a foundation of Alexander the Great, perhaps as Alexandria Oxiana, but this theory is now doubted. The city located where the Amu Darya (or Oxus) and Kokcha rivers meet. It had good farmland with irrigation systems and was split into two parts: a lower town and a 60-metre-high (200 ft) acropolis. Although it wasn’t on a major trade road, Ai-Khanoum controlled access to mines in the Hindu Kush and key narrow passages that were easy to defend. Extensive fortifications, which were continually repaired and upgraded, surrounded the city.