| From: wil.pieper@t-online.de Date: Tue Jan 29, 2002 12:14 pm Subject: bracteates |
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Dear group, this message is to present two gold bracteates from Central Asia and to ask for your opininon because I'm not sure about their authenticity. Before describing these two pieces let me put them in a context by saying a few words about similar objects. In 1999 Valentina Raspopova ('Gold Coins And Bracteates From Pendjikent' in 'Coins, Art and Chronology -Essays on the pre-Islamic History of the Indo-Iranian Borderlands' by Alram, M. and Klimburg-Salter, D.E., Wien, 1999) published some ancient Sogdian gold coins and gold bracteates which had been found in Pendjikent during the years 1947-1995. Pendjikent, now an important archaeological site, owed its importance in early medieval times to its geographical situation. It lay between Samarkand and the Ammoniac mountains on one of the branches of the Silk Road. As Raspopova states the Sogdians were well known in Byzantium as silk traders and Byzantine solidi were well known to them which made their imitation easily possible. The coins which have come to light in Pendjikent are imitative pieces of Byzantine solidi but of very low weight, like the bracteates. Paying attention to this very low weight Paspopova discussed in her paper if these gold objects could have been produced especially for burials. But this is not sure because only a few have been found in the necropolis of Pendjikent, the majority however in temples and private houses. Most of these bracteates have designs imitating Byzantine coin designs of the 6th/7th centuries. One specimen shows the Roman design of a wolf nursing the twins Romulus and Remus. One specimen depicts a standing warrior with a spear and another has a locally modified version of the Sassanian fire-altar with an Arabic inscription. Soon after the publication of Raspopova's paper some Central Asian gold bracteates, allegedly from Usbekistan, appeared on the market. Given the diversity of the known specimens it seems not to be unusual that these new pieces had designs differing from the known ones. In any case I had been offered two such bracteates and couldn't resist to buy them. The larger one has a diameter of 25mm and a weight of 1.1 grams, the smaller one measures 22mm with a weight of 0.6 grams. The larger piece shows a frontally facing portrait in half-bust depiction which seems to have been inspired by Hun coin models: Hun influence can be seen in the facial features, the jewellery, pearl-necklace and large earrings, and in the depiction of flower and branch which the portrayed person is holding in both hands. The legend above the bust is uncertain- Aramaic? Bactrian? Sogdian? or just corrupt and unattributable? The smaller of these two bracteates has a design which is inferior to the larger piece in sharpness and detailed execution. It shows a standing human figure in a double dotted border. The left arm is extended holding a flowing banner, the right arm is raised holding a trident. Cloth and headdress appear to have been modelled after Kushan prototypes. Images of the two gold bracteates can be found in the group's file area: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/southasia-coins/files/bracteates.jpg I would be grateful for any comment which might help to confirm or remove my doubts about these pieces!!! Thanks and best wishes, Wilfried Pieper |
| From: Lutz Ilisch
<lutz.ilisch@uni-tuebingen.de> Date: Wed Jan 30, 2002 10:07 am Subject: Re: [southasia-coins] bracteates |
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Dear Wilfried, The authenticity of such bracteates is hard to judge because they have hardly been studied so far. Consequently new types keep turning up. A number of Byzantine type gold bracteates are mentioned in Francois Thierry and Cecile Morrisson: Sur les monnaies Byzantines trouvees en Chine, Revue Numismatique 1994, p. 109-145 (quoted also by Raspopova). And there is some more published here and there. I once came across an article in Sovyetskaya Arkheologiya and also in the Bonn exhibition booklet "Geld in China" of 1981 contained something related (Sorry for the incomplete references as I don't have the books here). While your pieces seem to have no holes the majority of the bracteates either has holes or loops to be used as jewellery. I think that that was the primary function and just some of them were immediately used for burials. In spite of the fact that also two sided imitations of Byzantine solidi have been found in Central Asia I do not see much in favour that they were ever used for monetary purposes. In the Islamic period silver bracteates imitating Islamic coins largely replace the gold ones and I have even observed isolated bronze bracteates. These seem to end in the 12th or 13th century. At least I have never seen any with a typical late medieval design. I have occasionally suggested to students of pre-Islamic Central Asiatic numismatics to compare the Central Asiatic gold bracteates with the Central and North European gold bracteates, so typical for the migration period, published by Hauck and others. After all they both start around 400 AD and the Hunnic invasion lead also to some cultural adoptions in Europe. But so far no library seems to combine literature on both areas. Regards Lutz Ilisch |
| From: wil.pieper@t-online.de Date: Wed Jan 30, 2002 11:53 am Subject: Re: [southasia-coins] bracteates |
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Dear Lutz, thank you so much for your reply! > > The authenticity of such bracteates is hard to judge because they have > hardly been studied so far. Consequently new types keep turning up. You are right. The authenticity of these objects certainly is hard to judge because of insufficient study. Furthermore it may be difficult to judge them just from a scan but maybe we'll meet someday face to face in Tübingen. That would be nice and then you could see these bracteates in flesh and examine them closely. But should you have any doubts which you don't want to express openly I'd be very, very grateful if you could contact me outside the group. There is not any specific feature with my bracteates that would raise my doubts. It is more the fact that some weeks ago other gold bracteates have been offered for sale which very obviously were fakes. I have seen two identical pieces which tried to imitate the gold bracteate with the imitative portrait of Heraclius with his heir Heraclius Constantine (Raspopova,fig.7). I've added a file of these fakes- sorry for the low quality, it's a scan of a scan. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/southasia-coins/files/fakebracteates.jpg > In the Islamic period silver bracteates imitating Islamic coins largely > replace the gold ones and I have even observed isolated bronze > bracteates. These seem to end in the 12th or 13th century. At least I > have never seen any with a typical late medieval design. I have a Central Asian copper bracteate with a Hun bust to right. In case you are interested I also could load a picture of that piece up. Herzliche Grüße nach Tübingen! Wilfried |
