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The High Fort
Bala Hissar ("High Fort") is an ancient fortress standing on the southern edge of old Kabul, at the tail of the Sher Darwaza mountain ridge.[1][3] The citadel is divided into two parts: a lower enclosure that once held barracks, stables, and royal palaces, and the upper fortress, which housed the arsenal and Kabul's notorious dungeon, the Siyah Chal or "Black Pit".[1][2]
Early history
The origins of the site are obscure. Coins of the Achaemenids and Indo-Greeks recovered nearby suggest settlement from roughly the sixth century BCE, while use of the summit as a citadel has been dated as early as the fifth century CE.[1][2] The fortress reached its peak under the Mughal emperors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the emperor Babur, who loved Kabul, stayed there many times.[3][4] Under Timur Shah Durrani and his successors the upper fort became a state prison, and the citadel served as a fortified royal residence until the 1890s.[2]
The Anglo-Afghan wars
Bala Hissar was the stage for pivotal events of both Anglo-Afghan wars. In September 1879 the British envoy Sir Louis Cavagnari was murdered inside the fort, triggering the uprising that opened the second phase of the Second Anglo-Afghan War.[1][4] When British forces retook Kabul they levelled much of the Mughal and Durrani-era fabric and refortified what remained before their departure in 1880.[1]
The site was damaged again in the fighting of the 1990s and remains in military use today, its perimeter fenced within an Afghan army base.[3]