Ustrushana

wow, I'm not sure what to say?

I love you, brother

... heads-up though => "I like turtles" is now my sayin'

=> eye-for-an-eye, coin-brother!!

 

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lets join forces...."my turtles name is mittens".

 

Yes, much better example than mine.

 

Btw, I believe your coin is #68 or 69 here.

http://www.sogdcoins.narod.ru/english/chach/coins8.html

Sorry I didn't recognize it earlier. Sometimes with Sogdian coins smaller pictures are easier to identify than larger ones.

 

As an update, here is another Ustrushana type I just bought. Elephant to the left, and the same tamgha as on the first coin.



As with the first one, pretty scarce coin.

 

Any collector of any old coins might enjoy looking at maps of the regions that made the coins. We tend to think of the world as divided as it is now but borders, names and combinations have changed so often that it means next to nothing to say a coin is, for example, Indian or Italian (examples of modern countries that were not long ago divided into many separate jurisdictions. Some of us call coins Indian that were made in places now included in Pakistan. South India did not have links with the North but the North did with parts of what we call Afghanistan. Many of us know some of these former places because of our geneology studies and you might want to avoid calling someone from Wales 'British' or a Basque 'Spanish'. These mixes and matches have been going on long before we had coins. Coins can be ridiculously educational if we let them be. Maps are fun and there are thousands online. Of course some of them changed in less than a year and places appear and disappear so frequently that online seems the best way to store the millions of pages.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Ust...X&ved=0CBwQsARqFQoTCNHGkPW3vcgCFYN2HgodncYDsQ

 

Wow!! First time I've ever seen this rarity!! Looks like I have a long way to go on the Silk Road.. This field is so intriguing and little known.. Thanks for sharing..

 

Good point about the geography Doug. Ustrushana was an eastern portion of what I would call "Sogdia". It was to the east of Samarkand and Bukhara. To the east of it was Panjikent. It was the last fortress of what was called the "Sogdian Rocks" that Alexander conquered. As such, its the furthest east Alexander traveled. It was important because it controlled in part the easiest passage from China to Central Asia, the passage that by the 3rd century the Silk Road had moved to.

As to the importance of Alexander to Sogdia, he proved no fortress could be impregnable. As such, it changed the mindset of Sogdians from trying to make the most secure fortresses possible to simply accepting they could be conquered by a stronger foe. This mindset brought to the forefront the importance of commerce and trading, and positioned the Sogdians to inheret the Silk Road a few centuries later when centuries of warfare in southern Bactria forced the Silk Road north through Sogdia and the panjikent.

 

wow, sometimes it's funny how the human brain works, eh? ...

=> all I heard was "post your Sogdian comes from Samarkand"!!



Well, okay then ...