前近代のカーブル : 東部アフガニスタンにおける大都市の變遷

Abstract

There is much obscurity in the history, especially the pre-modern history, of Kabul, the present capital of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. In this paper, an attempt has been made to elucidate as much as possible the history of the city from ancient times up to the 18th century, by integrating the results of the researches on the literary sources, the analyses of archaeological materials, and numismatic studies. As a result, though still provisional, the following conclusions have been attained : 1) In eastern Afghanistan, the regional center shifted according to the politico-military setting among three historical cities, that is, Kābul, Kāpiśī, which was located at the archaeological site of Begram about 50 km by map to the north of Kābul, and Ghazni, which is located 140 km to the southwest of Kābul and flourished from the end of the 10th century as the royal capital of the Ghaznavid empire. 2) Those shifts of the politico-economic center of the region had been related to the geographical circumstances characterized by presumably limited agricultural production and enormously vigorous mercantile activities.