Barikot () (Pashto: بریکوټ) is a town located in the middle course of the Swat River in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It is located about away from Mingora and the Butkara Stupa. It is the entrance town to the central Swat Valley with a population of approximately 25,000 people. Barikot is the location of an ancient citadel captured by Alexander the Great, with Chalcolithic remains dating back to , and an early-historic period town dating back to . The Italian Archaeological Mission (renamed ISMEO) founded by Giuseppe Tucci has been excavating ruins of the ancient town of Bazira under Barikot since 1984. Excavations It was thought the oldest layer under Barikot was a village which has been dated to 1100-1000 BC, but previous Chalcolithic pit structures are attested since 1700 BC. Early Iron Age proto-urban layers were found, and dated to eleventh-eight centuries BC, archaeologists also found that the fortified urban settlement in Barikot (lower area and acropolis) was established around mid-first millennium BC. The excavations have discovered a number of artifacts which document the daily life of the residents, including coins, pottery and weapons. Several large artifacts including, a large green-schist statue of Siddhartha Buddha riding his horse Kanthaka and a carving of a stupa with two lions, document the Buddhist history of Bazira. Another statue depicting an unknown deity sitting on a throne, with long, curled hair, holding a wine goblet and a severed goat head in his hands may represent Dionysus, the Greek god of wine or another local deity. Chalcolithic (c. 1700-1400 BC) The first traces of human presence in Barikot are from ca. 1700 to 1400 BC, as per Giorgio Stacul (1987) findings, which he reported as belonging to Swat Period IV, these are pit remains attested since around 1700 BC. Late Bronze/Iron Age (c. 1200-800 BC) During excavation campaigns in 2016-2017, the Italian Archaeological Mission was able to identify the transitional phase from Late Bronze to Iron age, dating it c. 1200-800 BC. Excavations were performed in trench BKG 12 W, where archaeologists found, in Macrophase 1b, residential structures and workshops, along with a toy-cart, bi-carinated pottery, miniature vessels, stone tools, and incised pottery, all radiocarbon-dated between 1196 to 1021 BC (95.4% probability model). During this time, c. 1200 to 800 BC, archaeological data show the presence of a large settlement (around 15 ha), including a hilltop acropolis, commented by Callieri et al. (2000), an