summer surge ii: indo-greeks

THC, what would you suggest as a reference for these coins? Something that does more than merely catalog them, but perhaps analyzes them to a certain extent...

 

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I would not immediately recommend the real standard works by Boppearachchi and Senior. They generally are a bit "to much" for the average collector".

The Kushan and later imitations are covered in the book by Pieper "Ancient Indian Coins Revisited". It is concise, but not to superficial.

A general overview of Indo-Greek and Indo-Scythians can be found in the recent book by Hoover: "Handbook of coins of Bactria and ancient India". This also covers some punchmarked coins. It has some flaws, and you won't find all the mint-mark variations in it. But i would still recommend it to collectors with more than a little interest in these series.

For the Kushan, there is a nice dedicated website. Though i don't think it is updated much any more. http://www.kushan.org/

 

Ok, thank you! Actually, that website looks like a good place to start. Looks like CNG has Pieper for $95, which isn't bad as far as numismatic tomes go.

 

ok, here's coin three of my surge. technically this is an indo-Scythian I guess, but it's goes under the indo-greek umbrella in my book. very similar in style to my first apollodotus ii coin in this thread.



azes ii

pentachalkon (AE unti)


35-5 bc

o: greek legend around elephant

r: zebu with karoshthi legend

Senior 100.41

25 mm
12.6 g

note that is kind of "shiny" looking. when I got the coin, it had some
BD. I removed it (spot on zebu behind, and smaller spot at 9 o'clock on the obverse...you can see the damaged area) and treated with Verdi-care. I'll keep an eye on it.

 

Very nice one ! Despite some wear, the animals are still nicely defined. And i always like it when at least the name of truler is readable in the legend.
There are quite some different types of these chunky coppers. (Generally far cheaper than the Roman Sestertii.)

 

Awesome new elehant addition ... yup, ya gotta love the ol' indo coins, eh?

=> congrats on your cool new animal score!

 

No animals, but another penta-chalkon of Azes.
Interesting is that it is overstruck on an earlier one. Therefore there is both Greek and Kharoshti on each side.

 

oh wow THC, thats awesome. yours is the only overstuck indo-greek I've seen. (though I was reading online that there is some uncertainty about azes ii and I being different guys because of an overstruck coin found (an azes I on top of a ii?).

 

I don't think the final verdict has been spoken in this matter. The "one Azes" theory has been proposed by Robert Senior, who is a major expert on Indo-Scythian coinage. That would mean that Azes ruled over a very long period, from 58-12 BC. Not everyone is convinced of this theory and the dating schemes proposed by Senior. In my collection is still use the standard Azes I - II subdivision. As there are so many Azes coin types, some subdivision helps to keep things orderly.

On my coin there is not enough of the undertype to confidently identify it. Since some of the Greek text on both sides is similar, but with clearly different characters it is an overstrike and not a "flip-over double strike" as i have also considered.

 

well, i may not bet getting some of the coins form my original indo-greek surge, so i got myself a consolation coin. another indo-scythian, kind of hard to come by.




Azilises
60-35 BC
square AE Unit
King riding right carrying whip
Greek legend, i believe it says "The great king, the king of kings, the great Azilises"

Elephant standing right, Karosthi legend saying the same as obverse.
does the elephant have an old tv with rabbit ears on his back?
25x20mm
6.0g
Senior 60.2

 

double post...sorry.

 

What happened? I hope they weren't lost in the mail.

 

it was the one that was supposed to be mailed from italy, but instead was posted from pakistan. well see if it shows up.....

 

Nice ... cool lookin' elephant coin (hmmm, it does look a bit like that sweet pachyderm is packin' a television on its back!!)

=> yah, I really like the square coins (and at 20-25 mm & 6.0 grams, it must be nice in-hand) ..... congrats, bro-chrsmat

I'm pretty sure that I only have "1" square coin ...


India, Pushkalavati AE Square

 

oh yeah, that' s one of my favs...here my matching coin...

 

To adhere to correct coin-lingo the "television set" should actually be described as "Monogram Whitehead-21"

 

ah, thanks THC....i was hoping you'd pop in here.