ABSTRACT
In February 2008, the Swat Archaeological Museum was partly destroyed in one of the most devastating blasts of the Swat insurgency period, with a death toll of 70 innocents. Two years later, after the Taliban were defeated by the army, the Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan was called upon for an extraordinary recovery exercise of Swat archaeological heritage, which was denoted as the ACT-Field School project. The first Italian reconnaissance in Swat was followed by a plan drafted by Domenico Faccenna, where the fundamental lines of the mission's work were finalized. Since the beginning the mission was set up as an actual "body for the promotion of tourism and cultural assets" within the State of Swat. One of the major cultural trends in an osmotic environment such as the Swat valley, one of the frontiers between the Sub-Continent and Central Asia, is the interaction between dominance and subalternity, displayed in both social and ethnic forms.
