Lands of Asia layouts (Eng) 26.11.21

part iv | migrations of cultures
(according to museum collection data) and 1 specimen found in a ditch at the Nadir-
Diwanbegi madrasah in Bukhara.
In total, about 30 specimens of Tang coins have been recorded, but this register
is probably far from complete, unlike the one of wu zhu coins. The overwhelming
majority of these coins were found in habitation layers at sites and settlements,
for example during the excavation of a dwelling at the site of Shurob-Kurgan. This
suggests that Tang coins were used in a number of areas of the eastern and central
parts of Central Asia as a viable form of currency.
The range of circulation of Tang coins includes Semirechye, Ferghana, Chach, Sogdia
and Northern Tokharistan, and one coin was found in Bukhara. This distribution attests
to the fact that one of the most important routes of the Silk Road went through these
areas, along which Chinese goods were transported to Tokharistan (through the Iron
Gate Pass) and further on to India (through the Hindu Kush mountain passes – there
are known findings of Tang coins in northern Afghanistan and India). One example of
a traveller along this road is the Chinese monk called Xuanzang, who took the route
during his pilgrimage to Buddhist shrines in India about AD 630. The importance of
Tang coins is evidenced by the fact that they had a marked influence on the development
of coinage in a number of dominions of the eastern and central parts of Central Asia.
Bronze coins based on Tang coins, with a square hole and a Sogdian legend, were
issued by Turgeshes of Semirechye and Chach and the Turkic rulers of Semirechye,
Chach and Sogdia. Similar coins were also issued by the Sogdian Ikhshids, beginning
with the reign of Shishpir (AD 642–not later than AD 655) and by local princes of
Penjikent and other Sogdian principalities, and also in Paikend, a merchant city at the
Bukhara oasis. Bronze coins with a square hole and glyphs were produced in Otrar
(South Kazakhstan), and cast bronze coins with square holes and Sogdian legends
were also issued in Vakhsh – one of the possessions of Northern Tokharistan. The
same coins, but with a Bactrian legend as yet undeciphered, were circulating in the
Kafirnigan river valley area (Northern Tokharistan). Finds of small coins with a
square hole and remnants of Bactrian legends have also been found in Old Termez.
At some point, probably in the mid-7th century, Sogdia began to issue bronze
coins with a bilingual Sogdian-Chinese legend; the obverse was similar to Tang coins
and included the four Chinese characters: kai yuan tong bao, the reverse had a symbol
of the Sogdian Ikhshids and a Sogdian legend reading ‘divine’ on the right. Similar
coins have been found in Penjikent and near the Bibi-Khanum mosque in Samarkand.
Apart from wu zhu, Hou ch’uan (Huo Quan) and kai yuan tong bao coins, one
other type of Chinese coin has also been found in Central Asia. A hoard of knifeshaped
coins, possibly from the time of Emperor Wang Mang (AD 9–23), was found
near the railway station in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.
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