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Photo: Department of Archaeology & Museums, Government of PakistanField guides / Sindh / Banbhore (Sasyunjo Takkar)
Field guide · Heritage
Bambhore is situated on the northern bank of the Gharo Creek.
Excavations here exposed the earliest Muslim settlement of the subcontinent. The remains of a fortified city with cultural material of three distinct periods i.e., Scytho-Parthian, Hindu-Buddhist and the Islamic datable from the 1st century BCE to the 13th century CE were exposed. The fortified citadel of Bambhore is enclosed by a massive fortification wall having semi-circular bastions at regular intervals, three gateways, one each in the east, north-east and south respectively, an anchorage near the southern gate, an industrial area outside the citadel and the grand mosque which is considered to be the earliest mosque in the sub-continent besides residential houses with streets, lanes and by-lanes cutting one another at right angles.
Why go
The site sits on the northern bank of the Gharo Creek, about 65 km south-east of Karachi. Archaeologists working along the creek in the 1920s identified the fortifications as the lost city of Debal. Digging revealed three distinct cultures stacked on one another — Scytho-Parthian, Hindu-Buddhist and Islamic — and a destruction layer in the early 8th century that matches the accounts of the Arab conquest. The city was abandoned by the 13th century, most likely as the Indus shifted its course and the harbour silted up.
The mosque at Banbhore is considered the earliest known mosque in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent, and its ground plan is the best preserved of its date. Its inscription of 727 CE places it just sixteen years after the conquest. For the history of Islam in South Asia there is no more important excavated site.
What came out of the ground was a fortified city carrying cultural material of three distinct periods — Scytho-Parthian, Hindu-Buddhist and Islamic — spanning the first century BCE to the thirteenth century CE. The citadel is ringed by a massive fortification wall with semi-circular bastions at regular intervals and three gateways to the east, north-east and south, with an anchorage near the southern gate and an industrial quarter outside the walls. Within are residential houses on streets and lanes cutting one another at right angles, and the grand mosque that is considered the earliest in the subcontinent.
This is where the written history of Muslim South Asia begins, and unusually for such a claim, the evidence is in the ground and visible: the walls, the street grid, and the mosque itself.
Planning tip
Best Time to Visit, October to February. Summer on the Thatta plain is severe and most of these sites offer no shade.
Getting there, Thatta is about 100 km east of Karachi on the N-5. The town's monuments, the Makli necropolis and Banbhore can all be reached in a single run from the city.
Allow, Half a day for Thatta town and Makli together; a full day if Banbhore is included.
Straight-line distance from Banbhore (Sasyunjo Takkar), within 30 km.
