THE RUINS OF SIRKAP CITY

Pakistan_The Land of Adventure, Remains and Nature.It is a country with its own fascinating history and

cultural heritage. Pakistan was the site for one of the world's earliest human settlements, the great prehistoric Indus Valley Civilization, the crucible of ancient empires, religions and cultures. Pakistan is endowed with a rich and varied with things that can wonderstuck the world. The city of sirkap near taxila is one of these astonishing remains.

The second city at Taxila is called Sirkap, remains of gandhara civiliziations, which means "severed head"

and is the name of a mythological demon that is said to have lived on this site. The remains belongs to four distinct super-imposed periods of pre-Greeks, Scythians and Parthians. The city founded approximately in the first quarter of the second century B.C by the Bactrian Greek King Menander. The Parthian King Gondophares following the Greek pattern, built the city with its main street in the middle studded with shops and temples like Apsidal temple, Sun temple and Double-Headed Eagle Stupa and King's Palace close to the Eastern gate. It was under Parthians that “Gandhara Art” gradually emerged out of the classical forms and local iconographic traditions.

The wall that surrounded the city, appears to have had a height of 6-10 meters, was 5-7 meters wide, and almost 4,800 meters long. The walls are made from coursed rubble masonry, which is characteristic for the Greek and Saca periods. The main road of Sirkap: a straight line, dividing the 1200 m long town into two halves. The private houses were constructed of rubble masonry covered with lime or mud plaster.A stupa is a funeral mound, usually associated with the death and nirvana of Buddha. The building that is known as the "Apsidal

Temple" is the largest sanctuary of Sirkap, measuring 70 by 40 meter. The Apsidal Temple consists of a square nave with several rooms, used by the Buddhist monks, and this circular room, which gives the building its apsidal shape. After the earthquake that destroyed the city in c. 30 CE, the Buddhist shrine was built in a spacious courtyard.

A special Stupa at Sirkap is the so-called 'Double-Headed Eagle Stupa'. The pilasters here are of a

Greek design, "Corinthian columns". One round Stupa is present at Sirkap. It is one of the oldest Stupas in the Indian-Subcontinent. It is assumed that this Stupa was uprooted and thrown to its present location by a strong earthquake in the 1st century AD.

Sirkap (Taxila) has been inscribed in 1980 upon the World Heritage List of the convention concerning the protection fo the world cultural and natural heritage. Inscription on the list confirms the exceptional universal value of a cultural site, which deserves protection for the benefit of all humanity. Sirkap flourished under several different regimes, the city lost its importance after King Kanishkaof the Kushan dynasty founded another city at nearby Sirsukh.