Nezak Huns of Kabul; Drachm of Napki Malka, ca 630-700AD, and other Huns

Started by THCoins, May 05, 2013, 05:52:19 PM

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echizento

Here is one of mine.

26mm x 3.2g x 10h

THCoins

Great additions to show the variety in htese coins !

QuoteCan this coin be attributed to a particular ruler ?

: No these Nezak coins are as yet not attributed to specific historical ruler names as far as i know.

PeaceBD

What a beautiful array of coins in this thread. Here is my example.

HUNNIC TRIBES, Nezak Huns. Anonymous ("Nezak Shah"). Circa 500/15-560/600. Æ Drachm (26mm, 3.55 g, 3h). Kabul mint. Bust right, wearing crown surmounted by winged bull's head / Fire altar flanked by attendants; wheel symbols flanking flames. Göbl, Dokumente Em. 198; FPP fig. 84, 1.


THCoins

Thanks for the addition, the more the merrier ! Great photo.

Ancientnoob

Great additions. This is becoming my favorite WoC thread!

I keep coming back and looking at Mazikert's Hun #19. OMG! I want it, I want it, I want it.
"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it."

- Publius Syrius

Manzikert

Thank you, that is pretty much how I felt when I saw it in the auction catalogue ;D

I have seen a couple which have better reverses, but I've not seen a better obverse.

Alan

Pellinore

Quote from: Ancientnoob on June 04, 2015, 01:49:08 PM
Great additions. This is becoming my favorite WoC thread!

I keep coming back and looking at Mazikert's Hun #19. OMG! I want it, I want it, I want it.

Just because it's nice to make people jealous:

Manzikert


Pellinore

And what if those Huns were of a jolly disposition (some excessive taste of murder and destroying things notwithstanding), and they just laughed at the silly crowns of the Sassanian emperors with all those wings, pendants, stars and crescents, with pearls, gold and balls of heavily perfumed artificial hair into the bargain (Robert Göbl estimated the weight of Xusro II's crown as something like 200 pounds!).

The Huns decided: that's something we can do better, and they picked up an old buffalo skull, dipped it in gold and put it on the king's head as an absurd crown (think about the helmets of some knights in Monty Python and the Holy Gr-Gr-Grailll!), and stuck out their tongues against the mighty Sassanians. As for the Kidarite crowns, they probably just consisted of a circlet with some leftover carrots and bones from a copious meal stuck into it. What if they were just mocking their Sassanian enemies with this headgear?

It could be. What do we know about humor and parody in the early mediaeval Hun culture? Probably they were laughing a lot. But about what?

- Paul


Ancientnoob

"Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it."

- Publius Syrius

Pellinore

I have to make my apologies, I was too light-hearted, too shallow in interpreting serious signals of early medieval history. But I will make up by posting a link to a most interesting book about the matter, a very recent thesis (2014) by Nadia Hamid for Leiden University: Agency in Material? The Iconography of Headdresses at Bamiyan and What it Suggests about Relations with Neigboring Regions between the 5th and 8th Centuries A.D..

Bamiyan is the site in Afghanistan where two giant Buddhas were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. It was an important Buddhist cult site in Tokharistan (that's the name for Bactria, or Afghanistan-Southern Uzbekistan, in the Sassanian centuries), and still yields a lot of archeological data. This is a book of 130 pages with some useful illustrations, also of coins (use F5 with 'coins' for the various pages where Nadia Hamid treats numismatics). The author gives a valuable sketch of history and culture of this Kushan-Sassanian-Kidarite-Hunnic-Turkic area, then pinning it down to Bamiyan, and evidence of headdresses/ crowns worn then and there - plus their function. Most instructive.
-- Paul

THCoins

No need to apologize for some light-heartedness ! Thanks for the link, will make an interesting read i am sure.

Anthony

Pellinore

I found another fine Hunnic drachm, a Kidarite (about 380-450) with a full frontal face (not 3/4 like many). Another unusual thing is, that it doesn't have two assistants at the side of the fire altar, but only one. At the other side is a huge vase or bowl with long stalks jutting out of it.
There's a tiny inscription under the altar on the reverse, read as 'pylwc' (according to Pfisterer) or 'Jadana' (according to Vondrovec).  I hope knowledgeable people seeing this drachm can read my coin and tell me what it says!

Technical description: AR drachme Kidara, ca. 400. Unknown king. Obv. Frontal bust with a crown topped by a poppyball globe on a crescent, leaves next to it. Hair balls at the sids of the head. Broad ribbons rising from the king's shoulders. No text. Rev. Fire altar with ONE assistant, the one at the right side has been replaced by a large bowl with branches. Text under altar 'pylwc' (according to Pfisterer) or 'Jadana' (according to Vondrovec).
4,00 gr., 29,5 mm. Göbl Hunnen 15 (= Vondrovec 15 A). Pfisterer 15. Vondrovec I Type 15 (not 15 A). Description p. 32.

mitresh

In the quest for Excellence, there's no finish line.

Figleaf

I can only echo that. That's a wonderfully scary face, brimming with character. If you'd have met him you'd have been in major trouble, I suppose.

Peter
An unidentified coin is a piece of metal. An identified coin is a piece of history.