Central Asian Numismatics

The 1960 London Conference on the Date of Kanishka involved many leading scholars of Central and South Asian studies and had a profound impact on the field. This paper examines the historiography of the central problem posed at the conference: in what year did the era of Kanishka commence? It traces the advances in evidence that led to the solution of AD 127 between 2000 and 2010. The complexity of this process is often omitted in historiographical accounts, which opens the final solution to criticism and also fails to address why the field polarised after 1960 and found it so hard to reconcile new evidence. The paper suggests that eventual solution was a result of the cumulative effect of new data. It also shows that the field as a whole arrived at a solution long before it arrived at a consensus. This suggests that the failure of new evidence to bring about a solution more quickly is a major challenge to South and Central Asian studies in the future.

The Small Change for the Poor  (SCP) project catalogues a collection of several hundred generally inexpensive coins acquired in trade from 1979 to 2015: mostly copper or one of its alloys, a large majority struck rather than cast, and almost all produced al marco. Over the course of the 225 years that had begun with the likes of Wang Mang and Caesar Augustus in power, copper-based monetary denomination systems expanded in influence throughout the lands from China to Spain and Morocco, even as the details were changing at least outwardly. Part 3 of the SCP project includes coins of Han and Xin China; Samarkand in Uzbekistan; post-Maurya states and empires in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan; two Arsakid vassal kingdoms in Iran; Nabataea, centered in Jordan, ruled by an unruly “Friend of Rome”; and Jewish rebels against the Roman Empire in Israel. Also included are coins of the Roman Principate: provincial and civic issues from Egypt, Israel, perhaps West Bank, Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Greece; vassal kings in Israel and Turkey; a legionary countermark from Bulgaria or Germany, and imperial strikes from Italy.

This fifth installment of the SCP project catalogue includes coins of two Wei dynasties in China; the Mahakshatrapa, the Gupta Empire and some successors, the Kidarites, two different Alchon Hun states, and the Pallava, in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan; the Aksumite Empire centered on northern Ethiopia and Eritrea; and the Ostrogoths in Italy and the Vandals in Tunisia. Most of all, there are late Roman and early Romaion (Byzantine) coins, a few billon but mostly bronze or copper: from Egypt, perhaps, and from Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Croatia, Italy, and France; unofficial imitation probably from Israel; and uncertain mint, unknown provenance—all too many coins.

This sixth installment of the SCP project catalogue includes coins of the Tang, Five Dynasties, Ten Kingdoms, and Song in China; the Le in Viet Nam; several Hindu, Buddhist, and Muslim regimes—some rather shadowy—in Burma, India, and Pakistan, and perhaps Malaysia, Thailand, and Afghanistan; Chach in Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan; the Aksumite Empire centered on northern Ethiopia and Eritrea; Romaion (Byzantine) from Egypt, Turkey, and Italy, alongside a probable Pseudo-Byzantine from Arab-conquered Syria; and Umayyad and ‘Abbasid from Uzbekistan, Egypt, Israel, Syria, perhaps Lebanon, and Spain, as well as a few difficult-to-attribute that might have been from Iraq, Gaza, Israel, West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, or Spain.

A well-known series of gold coins copying Sasanian designs is usually attributed to Sind in the fourth and the fifth centuries. The principle study, by Joe Cribb, remains unpublished. This talk wil look at the series in general and suggest, following Cribb, it was issued by a Hunnic polity.

The religious significance of Wēś is a widely debated topic in the historical and numismatic study of Central Asia, including contributions from several scholars who claimed that the representation of Wēś in early Kushan coinage, particularly in the coins of Vima Kadphises (ca. CE 113-127), was an allusion to the conversion of the king to Shivaism. This paper contests the claim that the certain attributes depicted with Wēś should not be construed as belonging to the Indian god Śiva or the Greek god Heracles. The royal portrait on the obverse of the coinage of Vima Kadphises shows the king taking part in the Iranian practice of sacrificing at a fire altar, which further supports the claim that the depiction on the reverse is of the Iranian god Wēś. This paper also challenges recent studies, which suggest that the representation of Wēś may have served only as a royal cult or merely to announce the personal faith of the king. Therefore, this account seeks to remedy this misconception by pointing to the absence of other types of coins used for normal transactions by ordinary people which could have likewise represented their religious cults. Consequently, this article shows that Wēś was a religiously syncretic phenomenon that displays the religious practice of all levels of Kushan society including both the king and the locals who were mostly Bactrian-Iranian during the early Kushan period rather than Indian.

"I will be speaking at a seminar in New York on 8 March organised by Aleksandr Naymark on Central Asian and Middle Eastern Numismatics (there is a link below). I have spoken generally, and very quickly, at the last International Numismatic Congress, and I prepared a very rough set of notes on archaeological sites and finds (there is a link for that below as well).
There are about 130 hoards of Kushan coins known, and most of them are not well published. What I will try to do in this talk, again quickly as it is only thirty minutes, will be to show that there are clear patterns and those patterns can tell us very interesting things  about Kushan history. In the process I hope to highlight how important the detailed publication of hoards is, and where the gaps in our knowledge are - the points where just two or three well-published hoards could transform our understanding.
I'm hoping to put a pre-presentation paper here before I go to the talk which will cover important material."