Shahr-e Gholghola

Shahr-e Gholghola, “the city of screams” or “the city of tumult”, is a ruined citadel on an isolated hill in the middle of the Bamiyan valley in central Afghanistan, facing the cliff where the great Buddhas once stood. Its slopes are covered with the remains of mud-brick walls, towers, houses and passages, climbing in terraces to a summit from which the whole valley can be seen.

The hill was fortified for many centuries, and in the eleventh and twelfth centuries it was a stronghold of the Shansabani rulers, the house that became the Ghurid dynasty. In 1221 the armies of Genghis Khan besieged it. Tradition holds that a grandson of Genghis was killed in the fighting at Bamiyan and that the khan ordered the whole valley laid waste; the name of the citadel is said to recall the cries of its inhabitants. A local legend adds that a princess betrayed the fortress to the Mongols, which historians treat as a story rather than a record.

In 2003 Shahr-e Gholghola was inscribed by UNESCO as part of the Cultural Landscape and Archaeological Remains of the Bamiyan Valley, together with the Buddha niches, the fortress of Shahr-e Zuhak and other sites. Archaeologists have since surveyed and excavated parts of the hill, and conservation work has aimed to stabilise its crumbling walls. At sunset the ruins turn the same colour as the cliffs of the valley around them.