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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Severus Alexander, post: 4572653, member: 84744&quot;]Great topic, and that&#039;s a lovely prutah!</p><p><br /></p><p>Sogdian:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1132051[/ATTACH]</p><p>Sogdian coin legends are still quite mysterious.&nbsp; The alphabet is derived from Aramaic.&nbsp; The legend on this particular &quot;<a href="https://www.zeno.ru/showgallery.php?cat=2725" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.zeno.ru/showgallery.php?cat=2725" rel="nofollow">bust / archer</a>&quot; type coin from Samarqand has been given a number of different transliterations:</p><p><br /></p><blockquote><p>Zeimal: sprwrzh or nprwrnh</p><p>Alram: gpkw ML&#039;</p><p>Mitchiner: TaVR&#039;AKa</p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>I once had a go at the legend by looking at pieces on Zeno where it was clear.&nbsp; There are a few different versions, some with alternate letterforms, but they do seem closely related:</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1132129[/ATTACH]</p><p><br /></p><p>Here&#039;s an example with just the legend on the obverse (Zeno #140949, not my coin):</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1132285[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Based on the work of Sims-Williams (an expert on ancient Sogdian) my own best guess for a transliteration was this:</p><blockquote><p>yzkwkpk</p></blockquote><p>When I wrote to him, Sims-Williams said that interpreting the coin legends is very difficult because they&#039;re so short... there are a number of possibilities.&nbsp; He wouldn&#039;t hazard a guess.</p><p><br /></p><p>That&#039;s as far as I got.&nbsp; No idea what it means... and nor does anyone else, it seems!&nbsp; Mysteries are fun.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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