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<p>[QUOTE="Valentinian, post: 8314188, member: 44316"]Dr. Alan Walker of Nomos in Switzerland wrote about the upcoming Nomos auction and about a new MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) that might have the US sending Roman and Greek coins to Afghanistan as their "cultural heritage". The next long part of this post is all Alan's words (with his permission) and far below, below the horizontal dividing line, is the part about coins copied from the US State Department's website. </p><p><br /></p><p>Alan's words:</p><p><br /></p><p>There will be more highlights next time, but now it seems a good idea to let you all know about the latest action taken by the US State Department, with the support of a number of scholars, including numismatists, in order to safe guard the world's cultural heritage.</p><p><br /></p><p>Somewhat astoundingly, many scholars and archaeologists have joined with the US Department of Homeland Security and the US State Department in pushing through a MOU (= <i>Memorandum of Understanding</i>) with the <b><i>TALIBAN</i></b> Government of Afghanistan to protect Afghanistan's Cultural Heritage: the MOU came into force on 18 February, but was only published on the 22nd, almost exactly six months after the US completely withdrew from Afghanistan! In other words, soon, thanks to agencies of the US Government, all sorts of items will be confiscated on entry into the USA and then returned to the TALIBAN Government of Afghanistan for preservation. No doubt, now that Afghan women are no longer allowed to be educated, travel, drive, think for themselves, work in offices, dress in anything other than a sack with eyeholes, etc., etc., but are allowed and encouraged to marry at the age of 10, perhaps the now liberal and modern Taliban government will give these items to those women so that they can play with them - if they have some free time left from cooking, cleaning, having babies, or serving male relatives as is their proper place in life. And this rule was enacted by two agencies of the US Government that are filled with what we always assumed were bright, intelligent, energetic, competent, take-charge, stand-on-their-own-two-feet, feminist women! In reality, do they all sit by the door so that they can be seen but not heard, while policy is made by "the guys"?</p><p><br /></p><p><i>Worse</i> than this is what is actually in the MOU with the Taliban/Afghanistan (<a href="https://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=62258290&msgid=1730610&act=8BZI&c=329282&pid=3120770&destination=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.federalregister.gov%2Fdocuments%2F2022%2F02%2F22%2F2022-03663%2Femergency-import-restrictions-imposed-on-archaeological-and-ethnological-material-of-afghanistan&cf=103952&v=ef085ff70e130e7a48a6b37d2ec13225b503b8cc3843ccc902e2e56368d0ffe3" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=62258290&msgid=1730610&act=8BZI&c=329282&pid=3120770&destination=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.federalregister.gov%2Fdocuments%2F2022%2F02%2F22%2F2022-03663%2Femergency-import-restrictions-imposed-on-archaeological-and-ethnological-material-of-afghanistan&cf=103952&v=ef085ff70e130e7a48a6b37d2ec13225b503b8cc3843ccc902e2e56368d0ffe3" rel="nofollow">here is the link</a> so that you can read it in its entirety; but let's just look at some of the sections on coins (C. Metal, 5. Coins, sections a. - r.):</p><p><br /></p><p>Coins, §b. "<i>During the reign of Darius I, gold staters and silver sigloi were produced in Bactria and Gandhara. Approximate date: 586-550 B.C</i>." Could this be some other Darius than the one we know (born 550, reigned 522-486)? And I had always thought that Persian gold Darics and silver Sigloi were first minted in Sardes and never in the East, but I suppose the scholars advising the State Department (or the Taliban?) know better. </p><p><br /></p><p>Coins, §f. "<i>Gold staters and silver tetradrachms were produced locally after Alexander the Great conquered the region. Approximate date: 327-323 B.C.</i>" What are these supposed to be????? They are not in Price, nor in anything else I can check. But those scholars know better ... I guess. Perhaps they have been published privately?</p><p><br /></p><p>Coins, §h. "<i>Common Roman Imperial coins found in archaeological contexts in Afghanistan were struck in silver and bronze. Approximate date: 1st century B.C.-4th century A.D.</i>"</p><p><br /></p><p>Think about this for a minute or two ... could it be that from now on any late Roman Republican or Imperial coin, from the Social Wars to Theodosius I and without a known find spot, is going to be stopped going into the United States because it might have been found in <i>AFGHANISTAN</i>? Now it is true that at certain times Roman silver and gold coins did reach southern India, often in considerable numbers (coins of Augustus, Tiberius and the Severans, for example); and some also reached China (primarily earlier Byzantine solidi); so the occasional Roman coin was bound to have reached the area of Afghanistan - but in numbers sufficient to justify a blanket ban on their import into the USA? </p><p><br /></p><p>✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧</p><p><br /></p><p>Sorry for being both cynical and satiric, but what else can one say? No one can possibly be against the safe-guarding of a nation's cultural heritage from loss, but the idea that more-or-less <i>everything</i> ever made by human beings from the Palaeolithic through 1900 is a treasure that needs to be under guard in a museum (or, more likely, in storerooms) is sheer madness (here is just one group of metal objects from the Taliban/Afghan MOU: <u><i>Tools and Instruments—Types include, but are not limited to, axes, bells, blades, hooks, keys, knives, pins, projectiles, rakes, sickles, spoons, staffs, trowels, weights, and tools of craftpersons such as carpenters, masons, and metal smiths. Approximate date: 3000 B.C.-A.D. 1747</i></u>). Can any rational person explain how <i>hooks, rakes, spoons and trowels</i>, <i>not to mention Roman silver and bronze coins</i>, can possibly be of any importance whatsoever for the cultural heritage of Afghanistan? </p><p><br /></p><p>__________________________________________________________</p><p><br /></p><p>US State Department document list of restricted items, the complete part about coins, quoted:</p><p><br /></p><p>5. Coins— Ancient coins include gold, silver, copper, and bronze coins; may be hand stamped with units ranging from tetradrachms to dinars; includes gold bun ingots and silver ingots, which may be plain and/or inscribed. Some of the most well-known types are described below:</p><p><br /></p><p>a. The earliest coins in Afghanistan are Greek silver coins, including tetradrachms and drachmae. Approximate date: 530-333 B.C.</p><p><br /></p><p>b. During the reign of Darius I, gold staters and silver sigloi were produced in Bactria and Gandhara. Approximate date: 586-550 B.C.</p><p><br /></p><p>c. Achaemenid coins include round punch-marked coins with one or two punched holes and bent bar coins ( <i>shatamana</i> ). Approximate date: 5th century B.C.</p><p><br /></p><p>d. Gandhara coins include <i>janapadas,</i> bent bar coins based on the silver sigloi weight. Approximate date: 4th century B.C.</p><p><br /></p><p>e. Mauryan coins include silver <i>karshapanas</i> with five punches, six arm designs, and/or sun symbols. Weights ranged from 5.5 to 7.2 gm. Approximate date: 322-185 B.C.</p><p><br /></p><p>f. Gold staters and silver tetradrachms were produced locally after Alexander the Great conquered the region. Approximate date: 327-323 B.C.</p><p><br /></p><p>g. Greco-Bactrian coins include gold staters, silver tetradrachms, silver and bronze drachms, and a small number of punch-marked coins. The bust of the king with his name written in Greek and Prakit were on the obverse, and Greek deities and images of Buddha were on the reverse. Approximate date: 250-125 B.C.</p><p><br /></p><p>h. Common Roman Imperial coins found in archaeological contexts in Afghanistan were struck in silver and bronze. Approximate date: 1st century B.C.-4th century A.D.</p><p><br /></p><p>i. Kushan Dynasty coins include silver tetradrachms, copper coin (Augustus type), bronze diadrachms and gold dinars. Imagery includes portrait busts of each king with his emblem ( <i>tamgha)</i> on both sides. Classical Greek and Zoroastrian deities and images of the Buddha are depicted on the reverse. Approximate date: A.D. 19-230.</p><p><br /></p><p>j. Sassanian coins include silver drachms, silver half drachms, obols ( <i>dang),</i> copper drahms and gold dinars, and gold coins of Shapur II (A.D. 309-379). Starting with Peroz I, mint indication was included on the coins. Sassanian coins may include imagery of Zoroastrian Fire Temples. Approximate date: A.D. 224-651.</p><p><br /></p><p>k. Hephthalite coins include silver drachms, silver dinars, and small copper and bronze coins. The designs were the same as Sassanian, but they did not put the rulers' names on the coins. Hephthalite coins may include imagery of Zoroastrian Fire Temples. Approximate date: 5th-8th centuries A.D.</p><p><br /></p><p>l. Turk Shahis coins include silver and copper drachma with portraits of the rulers wearing a distinctive triple crescent crown. The emblems of these Buddhist Turks were also included on the coin. Inscriptions were in Bactrian. Approximate date: A.D. 665-850.</p><p><br /></p><p>m. Shahiya or Shahis of Kabul coins include silver, bronze, and copper drachma with inscriptions of military and chief commanders. Hindu imagery is included on the coin design. The two main types of images are the bull and horseman and the elephant and lion. Approximate date: A.D. 565-879.</p><p><br /></p><p>n. Chinese coins belonging primarily to the Tang Dynasty are found in archaeological contexts in Afghanistan. Approximate date: A.D. 618-907.</p><p><br /></p><p>o. Ghaznavid coins include gold dinars with bilingual inscriptions, Islamic titles in Arabic and Sharda and images of Shiva, Nandi, and Samta Deva. Approximate date: A.D. 977-1186.</p><p><br /></p><p>p. Ghurid coins include silver and gold tangas with inscriptions and abstract goddess iconography. Approximate date: A.D. 879-1215.</p><p><br /></p><p>q. Timurid coins include silver and copper tangas and copper dinars, both coin types are decorated with Arabic inscriptions. Approximate date: A.D. 1370 -1507.</p><p><br /></p><p>r. Mughal coins include shahrukhi, gold mithqal, gold mohur, silver rupee, copper dams, and copper falus. The iconography varies, depending on the ruler, but popular designs include images of the Hindu deities Sita and Ram, portrait busts of the rulers, and the twelve zodiac signs. Approximate date: A.D. 1526-1857.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>
[QUOTE="Valentinian, post: 8314188, member: 44316"]Dr. Alan Walker of Nomos in Switzerland wrote about the upcoming Nomos auction and about a new MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) that might have the US sending Roman and Greek coins to Afghanistan as their "cultural heritage". The next long part of this post is all Alan's words (with his permission) and far below, below the horizontal dividing line, is the part about coins copied from the US State Department's website. Alan's words: There will be more highlights next time, but now it seems a good idea to let you all know about the latest action taken by the US State Department, with the support of a number of scholars, including numismatists, in order to safe guard the world's cultural heritage. Somewhat astoundingly, many scholars and archaeologists have joined with the US Department of Homeland Security and the US State Department in pushing through a MOU (= [I]Memorandum of Understanding[/I]) with the [B][I]TALIBAN[/I][/B] Government of Afghanistan to protect Afghanistan's Cultural Heritage: the MOU came into force on 18 February, but was only published on the 22nd, almost exactly six months after the US completely withdrew from Afghanistan! In other words, soon, thanks to agencies of the US Government, all sorts of items will be confiscated on entry into the USA and then returned to the TALIBAN Government of Afghanistan for preservation. No doubt, now that Afghan women are no longer allowed to be educated, travel, drive, think for themselves, work in offices, dress in anything other than a sack with eyeholes, etc., etc., but are allowed and encouraged to marry at the age of 10, perhaps the now liberal and modern Taliban government will give these items to those women so that they can play with them - if they have some free time left from cooking, cleaning, having babies, or serving male relatives as is their proper place in life. And this rule was enacted by two agencies of the US Government that are filled with what we always assumed were bright, intelligent, energetic, competent, take-charge, stand-on-their-own-two-feet, feminist women! In reality, do they all sit by the door so that they can be seen but not heard, while policy is made by "the guys"? [I]Worse[/I] than this is what is actually in the MOU with the Taliban/Afghanistan ([URL='https://click.icptrack.com/icp/relay.php?r=62258290&msgid=1730610&act=8BZI&c=329282&pid=3120770&destination=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.federalregister.gov%2Fdocuments%2F2022%2F02%2F22%2F2022-03663%2Femergency-import-restrictions-imposed-on-archaeological-and-ethnological-material-of-afghanistan&cf=103952&v=ef085ff70e130e7a48a6b37d2ec13225b503b8cc3843ccc902e2e56368d0ffe3']here is the link[/URL] so that you can read it in its entirety; but let's just look at some of the sections on coins (C. Metal, 5. Coins, sections a. - r.): Coins, §b. "[I]During the reign of Darius I, gold staters and silver sigloi were produced in Bactria and Gandhara. Approximate date: 586-550 B.C[/I]." Could this be some other Darius than the one we know (born 550, reigned 522-486)? And I had always thought that Persian gold Darics and silver Sigloi were first minted in Sardes and never in the East, but I suppose the scholars advising the State Department (or the Taliban?) know better. Coins, §f. "[I]Gold staters and silver tetradrachms were produced locally after Alexander the Great conquered the region. Approximate date: 327-323 B.C.[/I]" What are these supposed to be????? They are not in Price, nor in anything else I can check. But those scholars know better ... I guess. Perhaps they have been published privately? Coins, §h. "[I]Common Roman Imperial coins found in archaeological contexts in Afghanistan were struck in silver and bronze. Approximate date: 1st century B.C.-4th century A.D.[/I]" Think about this for a minute or two ... could it be that from now on any late Roman Republican or Imperial coin, from the Social Wars to Theodosius I and without a known find spot, is going to be stopped going into the United States because it might have been found in [I]AFGHANISTAN[/I]? Now it is true that at certain times Roman silver and gold coins did reach southern India, often in considerable numbers (coins of Augustus, Tiberius and the Severans, for example); and some also reached China (primarily earlier Byzantine solidi); so the occasional Roman coin was bound to have reached the area of Afghanistan - but in numbers sufficient to justify a blanket ban on their import into the USA? ✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧ Sorry for being both cynical and satiric, but what else can one say? No one can possibly be against the safe-guarding of a nation's cultural heritage from loss, but the idea that more-or-less [I]everything[/I] ever made by human beings from the Palaeolithic through 1900 is a treasure that needs to be under guard in a museum (or, more likely, in storerooms) is sheer madness (here is just one group of metal objects from the Taliban/Afghan MOU: [U][I]Tools and Instruments—Types include, but are not limited to, axes, bells, blades, hooks, keys, knives, pins, projectiles, rakes, sickles, spoons, staffs, trowels, weights, and tools of craftpersons such as carpenters, masons, and metal smiths. Approximate date: 3000 B.C.-A.D. 1747[/I][/U]). Can any rational person explain how [I]hooks, rakes, spoons and trowels[/I], [I]not to mention Roman silver and bronze coins[/I], can possibly be of any importance whatsoever for the cultural heritage of Afghanistan? __________________________________________________________ US State Department document list of restricted items, the complete part about coins, quoted: 5. Coins— Ancient coins include gold, silver, copper, and bronze coins; may be hand stamped with units ranging from tetradrachms to dinars; includes gold bun ingots and silver ingots, which may be plain and/or inscribed. Some of the most well-known types are described below: a. The earliest coins in Afghanistan are Greek silver coins, including tetradrachms and drachmae. Approximate date: 530-333 B.C. b. During the reign of Darius I, gold staters and silver sigloi were produced in Bactria and Gandhara. Approximate date: 586-550 B.C. c. Achaemenid coins include round punch-marked coins with one or two punched holes and bent bar coins ( [I]shatamana[/I] ). Approximate date: 5th century B.C. d. Gandhara coins include [I]janapadas,[/I] bent bar coins based on the silver sigloi weight. Approximate date: 4th century B.C. e. Mauryan coins include silver [I]karshapanas[/I] with five punches, six arm designs, and/or sun symbols. Weights ranged from 5.5 to 7.2 gm. Approximate date: 322-185 B.C. f. Gold staters and silver tetradrachms were produced locally after Alexander the Great conquered the region. Approximate date: 327-323 B.C. g. Greco-Bactrian coins include gold staters, silver tetradrachms, silver and bronze drachms, and a small number of punch-marked coins. The bust of the king with his name written in Greek and Prakit were on the obverse, and Greek deities and images of Buddha were on the reverse. Approximate date: 250-125 B.C. h. Common Roman Imperial coins found in archaeological contexts in Afghanistan were struck in silver and bronze. Approximate date: 1st century B.C.-4th century A.D. i. Kushan Dynasty coins include silver tetradrachms, copper coin (Augustus type), bronze diadrachms and gold dinars. Imagery includes portrait busts of each king with his emblem ( [I]tamgha)[/I] on both sides. Classical Greek and Zoroastrian deities and images of the Buddha are depicted on the reverse. Approximate date: A.D. 19-230. j. Sassanian coins include silver drachms, silver half drachms, obols ( [I]dang),[/I] copper drahms and gold dinars, and gold coins of Shapur II (A.D. 309-379). Starting with Peroz I, mint indication was included on the coins. Sassanian coins may include imagery of Zoroastrian Fire Temples. Approximate date: A.D. 224-651. k. Hephthalite coins include silver drachms, silver dinars, and small copper and bronze coins. The designs were the same as Sassanian, but they did not put the rulers' names on the coins. Hephthalite coins may include imagery of Zoroastrian Fire Temples. Approximate date: 5th-8th centuries A.D. l. Turk Shahis coins include silver and copper drachma with portraits of the rulers wearing a distinctive triple crescent crown. The emblems of these Buddhist Turks were also included on the coin. Inscriptions were in Bactrian. Approximate date: A.D. 665-850. m. Shahiya or Shahis of Kabul coins include silver, bronze, and copper drachma with inscriptions of military and chief commanders. Hindu imagery is included on the coin design. The two main types of images are the bull and horseman and the elephant and lion. Approximate date: A.D. 565-879. n. Chinese coins belonging primarily to the Tang Dynasty are found in archaeological contexts in Afghanistan. Approximate date: A.D. 618-907. o. Ghaznavid coins include gold dinars with bilingual inscriptions, Islamic titles in Arabic and Sharda and images of Shiva, Nandi, and Samta Deva. Approximate date: A.D. 977-1186. p. Ghurid coins include silver and gold tangas with inscriptions and abstract goddess iconography. Approximate date: A.D. 879-1215. q. Timurid coins include silver and copper tangas and copper dinars, both coin types are decorated with Arabic inscriptions. Approximate date: A.D. 1370 -1507. r. Mughal coins include shahrukhi, gold mithqal, gold mohur, silver rupee, copper dams, and copper falus. The iconography varies, depending on the ruler, but popular designs include images of the Hindu deities Sita and Ram, portrait busts of the rulers, and the twelve zodiac signs. Approximate date: A.D. 1526-1857.[/QUOTE]
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