Mundigak

Tell site near Kandahar in Afghanistan with an important cultural sequence from the 5th-2nd millennia BC. By the later 3rd millennium BC, it was a major urban center with a large colonnaded 'palace' and other monumental structures within a walled citadel. Pottery and other artifacts of that time indicate interaction with Turkmenistan, Baluchistan, and the Early Harappan Indus region. It was closed related to the city of Shahr-I Sikhta, also on the Helmand River but in Iran. It is likely that the wealth of Mundigak, as of Shahr-I Sokhta, was based largely on trade in lapis lazuli and perhaps also copper. The Chalcolithic levels contained mudbrick and black-on-buff painted pottery and had a radiocarbon date of 3400 +/- 300 BC.

Tell site on the Helmand River in southern Afghanistan, occupied in the 4th, 3rd and 2nd millennia bc. In the 3rd millennium bc it was a major urban centre, closely related to the great city of Shahr-I Sokhta, also on the Helmand River, but over the modern border in Iran. Monumental buildings of this period have been excavated, including a probable temple. Strong cultural connections link Mundigak both to contemporary urban communities in Turkmenia to the north (see Namazga-depe) and to the cities of the Harappan civilization in the Indus Valley to the south. It is likely that the wealth of Mundigak, as of Shahr-i Sokhta, was based largely on trade in lapis lazuli and perhaps also copper.