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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Parthicus, post: 4259568, member: 81887&quot;]The university has shut down research labs due to coronavirus fears, so I am at home for a while and can finally get around to posting all my coin acquisitions of the last few months.&nbsp; Journey with me now back to the distant past of November 2019, when you could bring hundreds of people to gather at a coin show bourse and nobody would panic if somebody started coughing:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1085731[/ATTACH] </p><p>Indo-Scythians, Taxila mint.&nbsp; AE hexachalkqn (28 mm, 14.08 g).&nbsp; Azes II (c.35 BC- 5 AD).&nbsp; Obverse: Humped bull (Nandi?) right with trident below head, mint control mark above, Greek legend around &quot;Basileos Basileon Megalou Azou&quot; (Of the Great King of Kings Azes).&nbsp; Reverse: lion right, mint control mark above, legend in Kharosthi around &quot;Maharajasa rajadirajasa mahatasa ayasa&quot; (same meaning as Greek legend).&nbsp; Mitchiner ACW 2380.&nbsp; This coin: Purchased from Marcos Xagoraris (Aristos Ancients) at the Baltimore coin show, November 2019.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Indo-Scythians were originally a nomadic people who conquered a large region in the northern and north-western Indian subcontinent around the mid-2nd century BC.&nbsp; Unfortunately, the details of Indo-Scythian history are poorly understood, as very few historical sources survive; Indo-Scythian history makes Parthian history look complete and uncontroversial.&nbsp; Even the king to whom this coin is traditionally assigned, Azes II, is disputed- some historians think that &quot;Azes I&quot; and &quot;Azes II&quot; were just one long-lived king Azes.&nbsp; It is known that shortly after the reign of this Azes, the nascent Kushan Empire conquered Taxila and surrounding territories, as they expanded at the expense of the Indo-Scythians.&nbsp; The city of Taxila, located in what is now Punjab province in Pakistan, was a major point of contact between Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent for many centuries, from the around 1000 BC to the time of the Kushans, but it began to decline in importance until it was finally destroyed by the Huns and abandoned in the 5th century AD.</p><p><br /></p><p>The Indo-Scythians ruled an empire with highly diverse populations, and this coin shows that very well.&nbsp; The legend is in both Greek (showing the survival of some Hellenistic culture in the region) and Kharosthi (a script used to write Sanskrit and Prakrit [local dialects derived from Sanskrit] in northern India).&nbsp; The bull on the obverse is probably meant to represent Nandi, the mount of the Hindu deity Shiva (the presence of a trident, another symbol of Shiva, makes this attribution more likely).&nbsp; The lion on the reverse was a common Buddhist symbol at the time.&nbsp; Other coins by the same ruler show Greek deities such as Zeus, Athena, and Hermes.&nbsp; Interestingly, while the Greek legend is still easily readable, there is some drift in the letter forms: the O is square, the M looks more like H, and the N is clearly retrograde.&nbsp; This may indicate that knowledge of Greek culture was declining in the region.&nbsp; Anyway, this is an attractive coin with interesting iconography and mostly-intact legends, so I was happy to buy it.&nbsp; Please post your coins of Azes II, or whatever else seems related.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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