Pushkalavati, Charsadda

Pushkalavati, and later Shaikhan Dheri, was the capital of the Gandhara kingdom, situated in what is now Pakistan. Its ruins are located on the outskirts of the modern city of Charsadda, in Charsadda District, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 28 kilometres northeast of Peshawar. Its ruins are located on the banks of Swat River, near its junction with Kabul River, with the earliest archaeological remains from 1400 to 800 BCE in Bala Hisar mound. Pushkalavati became an Achaemenid regional capital around 600 BCE, and it remained an important city through to the 2nd century CE. ()