Türgesh/Arslanid's coins

Türgesh/Arslanid's coins

V.Nastich
V.Belyaev
30 May 2002, draft version

Introduction

.....

Arslanid's line of Türgesh's coins includes next basic types:

Type I: Türgesh's coin with additional obverse signs and .
Type II: Türgesh's coin with additional obverse sign and Soghdian inscription nkw.
Type III: Türgesh's coin with additional obverse sign and Soghdian inscription mnγ.
Type IV: Türgesh's coin with additional obverse signs and .
Type V: Türgesh's coin with additional obverse sign .
Type VI: Coin with obverse inscription _ and four unknown characters on the reverse.

Type I

Item	Ref.	Diameter, mm	Weight, g	Coin sides axises	Place of finding
1. 2.	Smirnova #1585 charm.ru	23.0 23.1	2.50 2.50

Obverse:
Türgesh's tamga which is stylized Turkic runic character 't¹'

[4]. The inner rim around the central square hole of the coin is a part of this tamga.
On the left and below of this tamga - runic character 'r²'

.
On the right of runic character - Chinese character yuan

- 'initial, first'.
Reverse:
One row round inscription by Soghdian semicursive script: βγy twrkys γ`γ`n pny - 'godlike Türgesh kagan's coin' [1, 4].

Type II

Click image to enlarge

Item	Ref.	Diameter, mm	Weight, g	Coin sides axises	Place of finding
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.	Smirnova #1586 Smirnova #1587 NBU #56 charm.ru charm.ru	23.0 22.0 23.3 23.4 25.6	4.12 3.44 4.70 3.69 4.29		Taras Taras
By some information coin #4 was found in a small hoard, hidden on the early XX^th Century near Kandalaksha, town located in 350 km from northern Russian seaport Murmansk. Original place of finding in the Central Asia is unknown.

Obverse:
Türgesh's tamga

.
On the left and below of this tamga - runic character 'r²'

.
On the right of runic character - inscription by Soghdian semicursive script: nkw.
Reverse:
One row round inscription by Soghdian semicursive script: βγy twrkys γ`γ`n pny - 'godlike Türgesh kagan's coin'.

Type III

Click image to enlarge

Item	Ref.	Diameter, mm	Weight, g	Place of finding
1. 2.	Smirnova #1588 charm.ru	28.0 27.1	10.70 10.92	Jambul

Obverse:
On the top - Türgesh's tamga 't¹'

.
On the left and below of this tamga - runic character 'r²'

.
On the right of runic character - inscription by Soghdian semicursive script in a bottom-top direction: mnγ or m`γ [1].
Reverse:
One row round inscription by Soghdian semicursive script: βγy twrkys γ`γ`n pny - 'godlike Türgesh kagan's coin'.
In the opinion of V.Nastich three above issues (Smirnova's types 1585, 1586, 1588) belongs to Arslanids, while the name of Arslan is not placed on those coins: The Türgesh's tamga / runic character 't¹'

is recognized as initial of the word 'Türgesh'. Hence by analogy it can be suggested that instead of the name Arslan (`rsl`n) on the coin obverse was placed character 'r²'

in soft position. This character located in below, "subordinated" position, which can be interpreted that Arslanids recognized themself as Türgesh's vassals.
Below is shown the unique coin published in [3]. Left character is the same runa 'r²' while right character I consider as reduced character 't¹' with large dot instead of romb. In such case we have two equitable symbols, standing Türgesh and Arslanid rulers in equal positions. On the reverse of this coin can be read 'arslan kul-erkin'.
On known coins with the title 'arslan-bilge' Türgesh's (Smirnova #1659) sign is absent which means, in our opinion, next period of their relationship.

Type IV

Click image to enlarge

Item	Ref.	Diameter, mm	Weight, g	Place of finding
1.	KRiB #, charm.ru	24.7	5.59	'Krasnaya rechka' site

Obverse:
On the left - runic character 'r²'

.
On the right - reduced and rotated on 90° right Türgesh's tamga which is stylized turkic runic character 't¹'

.
<I don't agree with V.Nastich's opinion that right character is reduced

. It is rather mirrored runic character 'g'

. V.B.>
Reverse:
One row round inscription by Soghdian semicursive script: ___ - 'Arslan kul-erkin'.

Type V

Click image to enlarge

Item	Ref.	Diameter, mm	Weight, g	Place of finding
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.	charm.ru charm.ru charm.ru charm.ru charm.ru charm.ru charm.ru charm.ru charm.ru	19.6 18.8 20.0 20.2 19.2 19.6 20.7 19.6 20.6	1.59 1.64 2.01 2.20 2.26 2.40 2.40 2.48 2.28	'Krasnaya rechka' site 'Krasnaya rechka' site 'Krasnaya rechka' site 'Krasnaya rechka' site 'Krasnaya rechka' site 'Ak-Beshim' site 'Ak-Beshim' site 'Ak-Beshim' site
Images of coins #3 & 9 see above

Obverse:
Türgesh's tamga

.
On the left - runic character 'r²'

(rotated on 45-65° right).
Reverse:
One row round inscription by Soghdian semicursive script: ___ - '___'.
It must be noted that character

is very protuberant in compare with other elements of the reverse (outer rim and Türgesh's tamga). It is known that all Türgesh coins with simple tamga on the reverse can be divided into three distinctive groups by their weight. Shown there coin with additional

character is very similar by its size, weight, quality of production to the 'middle size' serie of Türgesh's coins. We can suggest that those coins were produced with help of 'mother coins' used in the casting process of original middle size coins. Additional runic character was imprinted ('counterstamped') on a ready mould, prepared by usage of 'mother coin', with help of additional tool, so the height of this character on coins is much higher than of other elements. Let look at the enlarged runa image and pay attention to the defect near left leg of the character. This defect is on all 9 examples of this coin which were available for learning. So we can conclude that one tool was used to imprint this runa on a mould. В.Н. Настич, анализируя монетные находки с Краснореченского городища (1978-1983 гг.), разделил тюргешские монеты на 3 группы: крупные (д. 23 мм и более), средние (д. 18-22 мм) и мелкие (д.17 мм и менее) (Настич, 1989. С. 118).

Type VI

Click image to enlarge

Item	Ref.	Diameter, mm	Weight, g	Coin sides axises	Place of finding
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.	Smirnova 1659 charm.ru charm.ru charm.ru charm.ru charm.ru zeno.ru, #1741 zeno.ru, #1742	20.0 21.2 21.2 22.1 20.7 20.0 22.0 21.3	2.50 2.27 2.17 2.57 1.70 2.66 2.01 2.96		'Ak-Bishim' site 'Krasnaya rechka' site
Images of coins 2-5 see above

Obverse:
One row round inscription by Soghdian semicursive script.
Coins 4, 5, 6, 8 have different direction of the inscription.
Reverse:
Four same symbols, which were placed later by means of scratching on the surface of a 'mother' coin. Smirnova writes [1, p.62] that this characters are imitation of the Chinese character young

(use, employ, apply, operate). I think that much more better it can be recognized as one of another characters:

(thirty), zhou

(administrative division, state, province) or chuan

(stream, river; flow; boil).

References:

Smirnova O.I. "Svodniy katalog sogdiyskih monet. Bronza" / "Comprehensive catalog of the Soghdian coins. Bronze", Moscow, 1981, "Nauka" publishing, 548 p. - Smirnova
Catalogue of Antique and Medieval Coins of Central Asia. 100 coins from the collection of the National Bank of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, 2000, issue III, 74 p. - NBU
Nastich V.N. "Monetnye nakhodki s gorodishcha Krasnaya Rechka (1978-1983 gg.)" / "Coin Findings on the Site of Krasnaya Rechka in 1979-1983", in Krasnaya Rechka i Burana. Materialy i issledovaniya Kirgizskoy arkheologicheskoy ekspeditcii, Frunze, 1989, pp.96-120, ill. - KRiB
Shcherbak A.M. "Turkskaya runika. Proishozhdenie drevneishey pis'mennosti turok" ("Turkic runic. The origin of the ancient turk's script"), Sankt-Petersburg, 2001, "Nauka" publishing, 148 p.

More about Türgesh's coins:

Timeline of Central Asia During the Tang Dynasty

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