Buddhist Kingdom of Khotan (circa 1st - 3rd Century AD). Copper 6 Zhu (铢)。 The Sino-Kharosthi script coin belonged to a lost ancient Buddhist Kingdom of Khotan 和田 in what is now part of the Xinjiang province of China. Although they lasted through to the Tang, coins bearing the Sino-Kharosthi script are exceedingly scarce with earliest records and limited samples found by the late Ariel Stein while excavating the ruins of the desert of modern Khotan. These coins are of high copper content thus their conditions being buried in the desert often leaves much to be desired. These coins often bear motifs of the treasured horse from the steppes. However some varieties bearing motifs of camels were also noted. Being a melting pot of civilizations, the coin bears a very interesting synthesis of kharosthi (an ancient northern Indian cumore central Asian languange) as well as Han Characters.
Yes, Khotan is a tough issue, like others located in modern day Uighur territory. I believe I have a couple of them but no pics handy.
They are very interesting. I collect pre-iIslamic silk Road coins as a theme as well. They are truly an interesting and fascinating field
You and I will need to talk then sir. Sogdian coinage is one of my specialties. I have a pretty large collection from Chach, Bukhara, Samarkand, Ustrushana, etc etc. Here is what I believe the first indigenous coins of the Silk Road, its a Alexander the Great imitative piece struck in Kesh.
Hello medoraman, please call me Goh. Yes. We should connect more. My collection of Silk Road included Bukharan, Sogdian, Kushan, Chach, Semirechye and Qarakhanid. Also some Chinese ones too that were from the Tang Dynasty. Imitative Alexander's does push way back quite a bit before even the Bactrians. Excellent piece there. Most imitative I know of are often from the Hunnic and migratory people from Central Asia such as the Schytians.
@Loong Siew you might enjoy this thread I put together on my 蠕蠕 coin. https://www.cointalk.com/threads/swarm-of-insects-jouan-jouan-nomads.264492/
A nice and seldom seen coin you display here, thanks for showing ! Allow me to add a picture which is has some similarities in design. It is from roughly the same time period, but has its origin more to the south. It is a coin of the Hiranyaka of Andhra Pradesh. The obverse shows the horse. The reverse is different, but on mine unfortunately plain worn. The biggest difference is this one is almost pure lead.
In case you haven't figured it out @Loong Siew, (Goh), AncientNoob and I are the two resident Sogdian geeks here. And now we have a third. We have others who specialize in more south of the Hindu Kush like @THCoins, and ANoob goes south of there too. I tend to stay north of that dividing line myself mainly, collecting Sogdian, Kushan, Skythian, Hunnic, (Hepthalite, Kidarite, Alchon, Nezak, etc), Turkomen, Persian, etc. Mainly all pre-Islamic though. Well, at least for part of my collection. I also have a fairly large Chinese cash collection, Ancient/Medieval Thai, Byzantine, and bits and pieces of Roman and Ancient Greeks. Here is one of my Kai Yuan Tong Bao's with a Bukharan tamgha. And here is the very first Persian coin ever struck. A good friend of mine has written the definitive book on these. He has found 43 ever sold so far, so pretty scarce. Chris
Thank you. I was pretty exhilarated myself when I first got it recently. . I felt I could never fill a hole in the series without a piece.
Very nice medoraman. . I saw these Tamgha Kai Yuan before but unfortunately did jot end up successfully getting one. As for the Persian Achaemenid silver u got there, it could be a Darius? I don't have an Achaemenid myself but I did see some from good auctions before. I only know the ones where the king is leaning with a drawn bow was the oldest of the lot. I believe those belonged to Darius from the Biblical sources
Yes, its Darius. Its the first sigloi produced, that of a half figure of the king. 99.9% of all Persian sigloi you will ever see will be the full figure of the king. The Bukharan coin is fairly scarce, but I have seen quite a few for sale the last few months. Of course, I bought a few more of them.
Good!! We should start getting people more aware and appreciate them. The silk Road bears a lot of mysterious and romantic aura of a lost civilization worth preserving
Ask anyone here. I talk about Sogdia as much as I dare, I am sure most ancient collectors here are sick of me talking about it, (except for AN but he is a weirdo like me).
