The original ‘failure’? A century of French archaeology in Afghan Bactria 1

The archaeological exploration of southern Bactria has, since the 1920s, been linked to the story of the DAFA (Délégation archéologique française en Afghanistan), which was founded in the recently independent kingdom under the Emir Amanullah. This chapter covers a century of French research in the field in ‘Afghan Turkestan’. It lays emphasis on the specific conditions of the early years of the DAFA, and the historiographical burden of the so-called ‘failure’ of Alfred Foucher’s excavations at Bactra.