The Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan, 1956-1986. (Conference delivered in Islamabad on the 26th of October 1986)

Abstract

The present manuscript was recently retrieved in the archives of the Mission House in Saidu Sharif by Prof. Luca M. Olivieri, Director of the Italian Archaeological Mission, who asked me to edit the manuscript and update the references. The manuscript is the text of a public lecture given by Domenico Faccenna in 1986. The lecture was delivered on October 27, at a conference in Islamabad, which was jointly organized by the International Islamic University and IsMEO, and promoted by the Italian Embassy. 1 In the lecture, Faccenna gives an overview of the activities carried out by the Mission over the thirty years of uninterrupted presence in Pakistan—from the beginning of the work in 1955 to 1985-1986—and highlights the three main areas of inquiry: pre- and proto-historic period, pre-Islamic historic period, and Islamic period.