To be honest I usually skip over mixed lots entirely but last night on a whim I took a closer look at Goldberg's offerings... ..And I came away with this great Hunnic AR Drachm as part of a lot of 4 coins! Only have the one sided lot image for now, and its not particularly high resolution. After a quick look on ACsearch I can see some very similar coins with conflicting attributions. Here is my closest match so far: HUNNIC TRIBES. Nezak Huns. Circa 515-650 AD. AR Drachm. Kabul mint. Bust right with winged bull's head crown / Fire altar with attendants; wheel symbols in fields. (Göbl Em. 200; Alram 1478??) Approx 30mm Approx 3.0 - 3.5g Feel free to share your Hunnic coins in this thread!
Very nice looking coin Nvb!! As you probably know the reverse of these coins tend to be badly struck.. Here is my example...You may find this link useful..https://www.academia.edu/880242/Coi...of_the_Nezak. Hephthalites. Nezak Huns.. AR drachm. "Napki Malka" series. . Circa 515.680 A.D. Obverse..Bust right wearing winged-bull head-dress. Pahlavi legends nycky MLK-A Reverse:Fire altar with attendants, Solar wheels above. 3.41 grams....24.64 mm. Vondrovec [Göbl] 198
Yea the reverses are beyond terrible, almost like they were an afterthought. It's amazing how many centuries those fire Altar reverses persisted for isnt it? Luckily the obverses on these coins are often fascinating and very artistically crafted. Thank you for the link =) Aside from the Wikipedia pages on Kidarites, Hephthalites, Nezak, and Alchon Huns I havent done much research into this area
Here is another, purchased from Ariana Coins last year. HUNNIC TRIBES, Nezak Huns, Shri Shahi. Circa AD 560-620. BI/AE Drachm. HUNNIC TRIBES, Nezak Huns. "Nezak Shah". Circa 500-600. Æ Drachm. Crowned bust right, crown with three crescents, each containing a trident, ribbons on shoulder,tamgha or letters above ribbons / Fire altar, flanked by two attendants, wheels flanking flames. Alram, Alchon 76, Göbl, Dokumente Em. 226/225. Extremely fine example Weight 3.26g Diameter 27.2mm
No Huns here, unfortunately! What were the other three? Can you sell them to offset your cost on the keeper you posted here? Or were they keepers too?
HUNNIC TRIBES, Hephthalites. 470-565, AR Drachm (25 mm, 3.37 g), "Napki Malka" coinage. Royal male bust right wearing winged head-dress surmounted by bull's head. Rev. Fire altar with attendants. Mitchner ACW 1510 . From the collection of W. F. Stoecklin, Amriswil, Switzerland, acquired from Münzen und Medaillen in Basel prior to 1975. This came with this cool old collector’s tag from the Stoecklin collection.
While I found the coins appealing enough to buy a few, I have not been convinced of the ID's I have on them to the point I can post them without fear that someone would believe I might know what I'm talking about. I don't. Mine were purchased long enough ago that I have no reason to believe that names have not been updated. I have wondered if the reverses might indicate the two sides were struck separately/sequentially, perhaps with the coin placed on a leather pad. If the reverse were struck first, it could be largely erased when the obvers was struck. Has anyone seen this matter addressed by experts?
HUNNIC TRIBES, Western Turks, Shahi Tegin (Sri Shahi) (After 679 A.D.) Billion Drachm O: Crowned bust right. R: Fire altar flanked by attendants. Uncertain mint in Bactria 28mm 3.2g Vondrovec [Göbl, Hunnen] Type 236.
Nezak Huns Spalapati Deva AR Jital, AD 750-850 Obv.: Horseman right holding lance. Rev.: Bull left, Sarada script. Reference: Tye 5
This is a particularly interesting but just as difficult corner of numismatics. There's some important literature about it. This started with a groundbreaking work (1967) by Robert Göbl, in German and in four volumes (one all-photo, one all-original-texts - countermarks - marks), not cheap or common. This is the title in English: 'Documents for the History of Iranian Huns in Bactria and India'. If you have a little grasp of German it can help you along quite well. The @Nvb OP coin type is there, #200 alright. But especially in the last 20-odd years a lot of information has come to light, many new coins and archeology. There was an important exhibition in Vienna (the Art History Museum where Michael Alram works). There is a nice website about this: http://pro.geo.univie.ac.at/projects/khm/ And the coins with descriptions (if you hover over the pictures) are here: http://pro.geo.univie.ac.at/projects/khm/coins There's also a useful map section. The article @Spaniard posts here was written by Klaus Vondrovec, one of the foremost Hunno-scientists and published in 2011. Later (2014) he published a large catalog of coins minted by the Huns and their successors, a two-volume work that was based on that of Göbl - it has the same numbers and your Göbl 200 is also Vondrovec 200. This is the title page: In this book he states that the coin of your type, Nr. 200, is particularly difficult to date. But it is from after 560, when the Nezak Huns were decisively beaten by a combined army from Sasanians and Turkic soldiers. Some time after this defeat the beaten tribes went back north to the Kabul-Zabulistan area where they had been reigning a century before. This is what is called the Alkhan-Nezak Crossover. These people probably were subject to a Western Turk overlordship. A wide suspected data range is 580-665 AD. In this coinage things are not so straightforward as with Roman coins, where there's a lot of written history preserved in the course of the ages. Turkic and Hunnic history has been obliterated by later conquerors, there were no unbiased historians in their day - written stuff about these people, if it ever existed, has been lost. There has been some excavating and other studies in the early 2000s, with important discoveries (see this!), but Afghanistan is much more difficult now. Here are the Vondrovec #200 data in some photos I made from the book.
I have a very coppery type 198. Very helpful info above, thanks! I'd like to get my hands on a copy of that Vondrovec catalogue, @Pellinore.
I also lack the catalog. I believe this web site is associated with the catalog. It has some great coins. http://pro.geo.univie.ac.at/projects/khm/?language=en It can be very hard to tell the Hun issues from the Western Turk issues. The Western Turks took over but continued creating coins in the same style. Here is a late Western Turk example with trilingual inscription (inscriptions in Brahmi, Pahlevi and Baktrian): Western Turk Rulers in Kabulistan/Zabulistan, c.700-750 AD. 3.3 grams, 32 mm "Vakku Deva"/"Sandan"/"Pangul". Drachm. Bimetallic: silver with gold plug area of neck. Obv: Brahmi legend: VAKHUDEVAH; SRI VAJARA or sri candana vakhudevah (“His Perfection Candana, Lord of the Oxus”); Bactrian (outside) legend: CPI BOGO OZPOBOOI GO CONOONO BOGO XOOOHO “His Perfection, the Lord, the Chiliarch Sandano, His Perfection, the Lord”; Bust with winged lion's head-crescent moon crown; c/m: tamgha (cm139 but due to placement it looks different because the main type shows through the countermark.) Rev: Bactrian legend: CPI BOGO OOHBO BOGOOI PO KOGONO COI BOGI “His Perfection, the Lord, his Majesty, the Bactrian Kagan, his Perfection, the Lord”; Pahlavi: 'pzwn'; P'' shmr't “increase”…”from Glory..”; Fire altar flanked by two attendants; star and crescent flanking flames. Göbl, Dokumente Em. 244; MACW 1562; for c/m: Göbl, Dokumente KM 103. cf. Afganistan / Pakistan Area » Nezak and Western Turk Dynasties » Turk Shahi Kings of Kabul and Gandhara, ca 650 to early 9th C. » Sandan Crazy headgear. Tom Mallon called the headgear 'Senmerv' Crown Type. Quant Geek on Zeno calls the headgear bull head crown. To me it the thing on top of the wings looks like a beast-with-mane, such as cm150, but in 3/4 view similar to cm149. Vondrovec calls it a "lion's head".
Crazy headgear, in our modern eyes, but naturally these crowns have a symbolic or shamanistic meaning that's now lost to us. You can compare it with the winged lion of St. Mark or the winged ox of St. Luke. A Senmerv or Senmurv (or Simiurgh) is a benign fable animal from the Iranian mythology. Here's an article from a curator of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that explains it admirably. The article by Nadia Hamid I mentioned above compares the various forms of headgear found on coinage and on frescoes and other forms of art in Central Asia, which is quite enlightening. If you are interested in those mysterious Sogdian coins, you should take a look at it, too. Coins like these: Or this one with a triple-dotted crescent on his head (sorry, it's rather worn):
That's a good one! I've always had a soft spot for Nezak issues, and still have a handful of mine. A really unusual find... here is a piece of a drachm that was chopped up to make six obols... and it's a die match to the above coin! After the Alchons were driven from India, they seem to have joined forces with the Nezaks; here is a "crossover" type with the Alchon tamgha reverse, struck on a smaller, thicker, more "Indian" flan After some time, they were subjugated by the Turks; here is a more scarce issue which replaces the fire altar attendants with Turk tamghas (reverse is double struck)
I have all of the references, Vondrovec, Alram, Gobl, BMC "From Persis to the Punjab", etc. It is one of my sub-specialties along with Sogdian. Coins with good reverses can be found, just not commonly. In fact, it is what advanced collectors search for. You can see two coins with identical obverses sell for much different amounts, but look at the reverses to see the difference. I have fully struck reverses of many Nezak, Alchon, and Turkic/Hepthalite types, (though of course many more with worn reverses). I highly recommend Vondrovec, along with the BMC book, for readability. Both are great reads that really helped my education. Gobl is Gobl. Good for type references, (although I admit it hurts I do not read German).
