• his route through the Punjab across the
Salt Range to the Jhelum river, and the exact
site of the decisive battle in which he defeated Poros

• the line taken during the near-disastrous retreat from the
Indus Delta to Persia through Gedrosia.

The results of his archaeological and geographical expeditions were published in his book On Alexander’s Track to the Indus (1929) and in various articles.

The meeting point of East and West and the mixture and synthesis
of the various cultures flourishing in those places were always the focus
of Stein’s scholarly interest. Greek culture transported far into the
heart of Asia was manifested in the Buddhist
art of Gandhara in Afghanistan
and Northern India.

In the 1870s at the Kreuzschule of Dresden, one of Stein’s teachers gave him a copy of The Campaigns of Alexander by Arrian, the 2nd century Greek historian. As a child Stein became fascinated by the great Macedonian conqueror and throughout his life devoted many excursions to tracing the routes and stages of Alexander’s Eastern campaign 
and verify the exact places in which critical battles had been fought.

Stein’s attempts to solve the Alexandrian mysteries used his skills in comparative
linguistics, history, historical geography and military history:

• the identification of the Rock of Aornos, which Alexander the Great
captured from local army on his way
to the Indus in 327 B.C.E;