BACKGROUND
The word “Quetta” is a distorted version of the word “Kot”, a pushto word meaning
“Fort”, “Kwotta”, a pushto word meaning mud-dune. The ancient name of Quetta was
“Shalkot” which remained unchanged from 10th Century to middle of the
19th Century. There was a small plateau with a height of 80 ft, covering
an area 600 by 400 ft. That small town was walled to form the fort. According to
archeologists, this area was inhabited even five thousand years back in history.
Excavations and discoveries in the village of Killi Gul Mohammad and Balaili prove
that point. In 1883, the statue of Hercules was discovered in Shalkot, which proves
that this area remained a part of Bakhtari-Greek.
Till the middle of the eighteenth century, the history
of Quetta district is identical with the history of Kandahar. In the eleventh century
it was part of the Bakhtari-Greek empire. After that it remained under the Kingdom
of the Amir Sabuktagain and Mahmood Ghaznavi till the thirteenth century. In 1470,
the Kandahar Kingdom was succeeded by Timur’s. Between 1530 and 1545, the Province
of Kandahar was in the possession of Mirza Kamran (The brother of a Mughal ruler).
In1622 the Kingdom was brought under the sway of the Safavid dynasty and remained
there until 1709. Later Ghilzai came into power and ruled the area. Thereafter,
Quetta was transferred to Nadir. Later on history relates that Ahmed Shah Durrani
finally conferred Quetta to the Khan of Kalat as a shall (more).