🏔️ c. 329 BC | Alexander’s Army Crossing the Hindu Kush (Modern Afghanistan) What you’re seeing: Macedonian scouts and pack animals moving through the Khawak Pass (~3,550 m / 11,650 ft), a high route linking the Kabul region to Bactria’s northern plains as Alexander pushed toward Bessus. Why were they crossing the Hindu Kush? Alexander was moving into Bactria (northern Afghanistan and nearby Central Asia) and Sogdiana (around the Zeravshan Valley, modern Uzbekistan/Tajikistan) to secure the far eastern provinces and pursue Bessus (satrap of Bactria) after Darius III’s death. The conditions: Ancient accounts describe deep snow, cold, and severe supply strain. Animals and supplies were lost; some sources describe men surviving by slaughtering pack animals when fodder ran out. What did Alexander look like? The historian Plutarch describes him in his Life of Alexander: "Apelles... in painting him as wielder of the thunder-bolt, did not reproduce his complexion, but made it too dark a...