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| 0103 |
Archaeological Reconnaissances in North-Western India and South-Eastern Īrān : vol.1 |
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rock salt has been worked probably from very early times. Excavations which
have produced *inter alia* a vast hall up to 300 feet in height, before the introduc-
tion of modern methods of mining, must have proceeded for centuries. But the
inquiries made through the obliging superintendent in charge yielded no in-
formation about old remains. The salt-mines of the Salt Range are mentioned
both by Strabo and Pliny,¹ and as the former distinctly places them in the coun-
try of Sōpeithes, whose palace, as we are told by Arrian, lay on the Hydaspes
three days' journey below Boukephala and Nikaia,² it appears probable that the
mines of Khewra, the greatest and best known among them, certainly since
medieval times, were worked already in the days of Alexander's invasion.³
But no doubt salt was then worked at other available spots also, just as it was
up to the time of the British annexation. The salt formation marked usually by
overlying brick-red gypsum crops out along almost the whole of the southern
face of the range.
The object of the tour started after reaching the old town of Bhēra on
December 10th, was to gain acquaintance with any old sites to be traced along
the Jhēlum as far as its course lies within the Shāhpur District. The tour was
subsequently to be extended to the sandy tract of the Thal within the Miānwālī
District east of the Indus, where reports of extensive mounds suggested early
occupation of ground now abandoned to the desert. The town of Bhēra on the
left bank of the Jhēlum, still an important local centre, retains the name of an
ancient territory which Fa-hsien, coming from Bannu (*Po-na*) and crossing the
Indus about A.D. 401, mentions under the name of *Pi-t'u* (Bheḍa).⁴ It is known
that the present site of the town has been occupied only since the time of the
Emperor Shēr Shāh, who about A.D. 1540 moved it there from the right bank
of the river, where Bābur on his first invasion of the Panjāb, A.D. 1519, had still
found it.⁵
The site of 'Old Bhēra', as it is still locally known, is represented by a large
debris-covered mound situated to the north of the village of Ahmadābād close
to the hamlet of Sardār-kōt, and about 3½ miles across the river from Bhēra.⁶
The mound rests on an outcrop of sandstone not far from the right bank of the
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