A lost civilization. Rouran Khaganate of the Steppes of Northern China

The Rouran Khaganate. 5~6th century AD.

AE coins crudely imitating Kushan coinage.

A lost civilization of nomadic people living in the Northern Steppes of Ancient China during the 5-6th century AD. Also known as Jouan Jouan and other less complimentary titles such as Ru Ru by Chinese historical resources, they were a powerful confederacy which spanned a huge empire stretching to the west covering much of the silk Road. Unfortunately, decay and a joint force of Gokturk, Central Asian Tribes, Northern Qi and Northern Zhou dynasties during the 6th century broke them down and their civilization was lost in history.

Trivia: not to be confused with the ancient Loulan civilization that gave us the Eurasian Tocharian mummies along the Tarim basin of modern Xinjiang.

 

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23mm x 7.82 grams

 

Jouan Jouan coins are tough. Seems to be a lot of confusion as to which are and which aren't. I have examples like yours and AN, but some dealers ascribe them to Jouan Jouan, and others Kushan local imitations.

 

Diluted Kushan themes. I like them a lot.

 

The Rouran coins are conventionally accepted as Kushan imitations. Even the ones posted are imitating Kushan issues with a seated Maues and standing Maues. It is likely thus that The Rourans used Kushan issued coins imitating the Kushans as opposed to an independent theme of their own.

 

I actually first knew that the Rourans issued coins after seeing @Ancientnoob specimens. I was looking high and low for them until I realized I should have been looking under Jouan Jouan instead of Rouran.

 

The popular attribution of some Kushan-era imitations to the "Jouan-jouan" seems to begin with Mitchiner (ACW p. 442). His argument is that the Kushan Vasu Deva "does not appear to have struck coins in Northern Afghanistan, though his money circulated as far north as the Choresmian kingdom where his coins have been recovered in excavations". Mitchiner then refers to a series of "light weight (emphasis mine), fairly common and generally rude imitations of Huvishka's copper coinage found in Balkh and its environs" as evidence of "an assumption of independence". The last piece of Mitchiner's puzzle is a nebulous reference in Chinese sources to "the Kushan being subject to raids by the Jouan-jouan". Therefore, in Mitchiner's mind, these lightweight Kushan imitations struck in and around Balkh in a period of coin shortage must therefore be the long-lost coinage of the Jouan-jouan! Why? What makes these imitations special among the great mass of imitations found all over the former Kushan realm? Because a coinage attributable to the Jouan-jouan sounds much more romantic than "local imitation" and because Mitchiner really really wants it to be so. To paraphrase Freudian apocrypha, "sometimes a local imitation is only a local imitation".

End of rant. Everyone back to work.

 

This is another thing I love about ancient coins: tangible evidence of long lost civilizations and people.

John

 

Totally second that.

 

My question is how future students are going to advance the current level of mystery wen it comes to understanding the local imitations as opposed to other cultures?

 

Nice specimens @dougsmit . Unless new evidences arise, we can only stick with current conventions. However attribution may be logical given a few possibilities. .

1) the Rouran territory is expansive and covers parts of the area closest to Kushan sphere of influence. Just like the mongols centuries later, possibly those areas may be using/issuing these imitatives.

2) these coins are fairly abundant. This means that they were fairly prosperous or had sufficient resources to issue in such quantites and distribution. Local factions with limited territory and resources would be rather hard pressed to issue in such abundance and consistency of design. Thus a pretty large power like the Rouran may be a possible candidate.

The above are merely my personal theories. . I am no authority like Mitchiner but at least that is a starting point of reference until a definitive attribution come to the fore. Also, i have seen discussions and atttibutions from Chinese numosmatic forums that also attributed them to the Rourans. Unless their point of reference was also through some translated work of Mitchiners', there might be other independent sources in China that shared such views. Unfortunately i have not personally gotten such a reference to corroborate that from my end.

 

You always post such interesting topics, Loong Siew!

Getting me interested in coins and people I never even knew existed.

 

Thanks @Theodosius . I don't have a lot of Roman or Greeks to compare with you guys.. so I can only share what little I have on the Eastern side of the history : )

 

It has long been a failure of numismatists that wanting something to be so has clouded interpretation. The best (worst) example of this fatal flaw may be the so-called "barbarous radiates", paticularly the tiny minimi of Roman-era Britain, which were long thought to constitute a "dark ages" coinage. Even great numismatists like J.P.C. Kent fell into the trap of desperately wanting it to be so. How do we know that these radiate minimi belong to the 5th century, you ask? Because they are found in 5th century hoards! How do we know that they are 5th century hoards? Because they contain radiate minimi! So the argument went around and around and everyone was quite happy with themselves and their Arthurian "dark age" coins. That is, until 1960 when a hoard containing radiate minimi was discovered in a sealed archaeological context below the concrete foundation of the Roman theater at Verulamium, laid circa 300. We now know, having built upon the pediment of the Verulamium find, that the barbarous radiates were in fact contemporary with their prototypes and that there was no coinage of any kind in use during the British "dark age" (c. 450-600). Indeed, there is no evidence of an exchange economy for which coins might have proved useful. Still, these 56 years later one need only look as far as eBay or even major auction houses to see that these long-disproved romantic notions maintain a grip on the imagination of numismatists. Getting back to Doug's point, one hopes that future students of numismatics will rely more on reasoned scientific method, including economic models, and less on the visceral need to fill voids in their cabinets at the expense of "real" history.

 

Here is some very conclusive evidence of a local imitation:

 

Very interesting thread! I wonder about the true origin of these coins, and whether we will ever know.

 

It is easy to look at Mitchiner and other workers of the past and see their errors. We need to remember that they also got a lot of things right. Any science always has a new set of people 100% convinced that they have all the answers. My grandson was taught in middle school about the atom. They showed half a dozen 'models' explaining atomic structure each named and dated as to when they were state of the art knowledge. The problem is the one of these I remember for high school was now called the old fashioned model. Fifty years is a long time when we are talking about science. Ask Pluto. When some of our standard coin references were written there was no discussion of Pluto being or not being a planet because it had not yet been discovered. We are lucky that there is any progress in a minor science like numismatics when there is so much to do in every field.

 

But when we ignore the work which came before, eschew critical thought and abandon scientific method in pursuit of fantasy, we take a step backward. Or so it seems to me.