Ancient city of Ahichatra

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Ahichchhatra, Dt. Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh
Ahichchhatra which is identified by Alexander Cunningham as Ahichchatra of ancient literature is about 11 km north of Aonla, the tehsil headquarter. This site was first excavated by Cunningham and then by K.N. Dikshit assisted by A. Gosh and others in 1940-44. They identified Nine periods of occupation called 'strata' starting from pre mauryan period ( pre 300 BC) up to1100 AD. Besides other things the excavation also reveled number of coins which includes caste coins from the earliest starta followed by panchala coins ( I st C. BC), Kusana coins, coins of Acyu, who is identified with Acyuta, the king who was defeated and the territory annexed by Samudragupta etc. The dates of the various stratums have been arrived based on the coin finds, viz., Stratum IX, before 300 BC; Stratum VIII, 300 to 200 BC; Stratum VII, 200 to 100 BC; Strata VI and V, 100 BC to AD 100; Stratum N, AD 100 to 350; Stratum III, AD 350 to 750; Stratum II, AD 750 to 850; and Stratum I AD 850 to 1100.

Ahicchatra was excavated again by N.R. Banerjee of the ASI in 1963-4 and 1964-5 which brought to light four cultural periods named as Period I to IVstarting from OCP. PGW followed by NBPW up to Kusana Gupta period.

The presence of PGW and NBPW in the core of the rampart indicates that it was built during Period IV. Four phases of expansion and repair of the rampart was brought to light.