City
Bestia Deselutia
Kuhak · Beest · Bost? (Miller)
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Bestia Deselutia stands on the Tabula where three routes meet, and it is probably Bost, at the confluence of the Helmand and Arghandab rivers in south-western Afghanistan. The name may go back to an Iranian word for a settlement, and the Roman writer Pliny seems to know the place as Parabeste. Pottery, seals and coins show people living there from the fifth century BC to the fifth century AD. The land around is steppe today, but in antiquity it was fertile, and the town controlled a major caravan route. In the eighth century it marked the limit of the Arab advance south of the Hindu Kush.