Hi Group ! I come back to you with an idea of collecting coins related to the Silk Road routes : extract from Wikipedia Did some of you already think about that ? Maybe just a bit cray idea due to the vastness and numerous territories ! This could be seen from the ancient civilizations viewpoint but also modern ones with brand new world coins ! Glad to hear your opinion on that ! Cheers Philippe
The silk road is actually my specialty right now sir. The main silk road was the trade between China and Rome/Byzantium. There were two, the earlier one was the southern silk road going through Bactria and Parthia and on to Rome. Later, after the coming of the Hepthalites and Yueh Chi, there was instead a northern one, going through the Tarim basin, through Sogdia, and then through Sassanid territory. For the land route, the coins would be either Chinese-bactiran-parthian-Roman, or Chinese-Sogdian-Sassanid-Byzantine as a beginning. I could talk about this for hours, so will stop now to stop from boring everyone else. Chris
Thank you for this summary Chris ! I should have guessed Just to avoid boredom, i willl put a pic of a typical sassanid coin : We shall see if others are interested too :hail:
Khusroe II, the ruler who conquered much of Byzantine empire and took the "true cross" from Jerusalem.
The coins of the Silk Road are a fascinating subject and some of the best research is being done by the Chinese. I regret that my collection only includes a couple of coins from the Qiuci Kingdom. Gary
Perhaps this thread would have a longer life if you defined what you consider close enough to the red line on your map to be called Silk Road and showed representatives of interesting items. I have a few but really know little about most of them. Of the numismatic books I have read, the ones covering Central Asia seem to be most in need for more details.
For Central Asia, there are great resources but not great coin resources unless you read Russian. I have the standards for Sogdian coins and they are russian. For general history, Sogdian Traders is probably my favorite book.
The Western Satraps were involved somewhat in the old southern silk road as well as the important silk road diversion to India. People forget the silk road also included trade to and from India, and it was easier to go on the silk road than through the Himalayas for most trade between India and China.
