The Rājas of Chitral: The Kings of the Three Eras

The written history of the ChitralChitral region, which is still in its infancy and as well as fragmented, is generally based on historical documents, oral traditions and the poorly understood crumbled archaeological evidence. To know the history and culture of the Chitral region is, therefore, more a curiosity than a knowledge and mainly concerns of the groups of people who have been there for a long time. The archaeological heritage of Chitral was first highlighted by Biddulph when he visited the region in 1878. But with the BritishBritish penetration of the region in 1895 and the illustrious contribution of Aurel Stein (1921: 35–42) and the Italian activities in the 1960s (Stacul 1969), the archaeological heritage has become increasingly important for researchers and this has laid the foundations for new serious efforts by the various relevant national institutions. Various missions to the area have since been investigating and as a result, dozens of archaeological sites have been documented including certain epigraphic records that could help to piece together part of the political and cultural history of Chitral between the at least fourth-eleventh centuries AD.