Catalog
1 Cash - Shishpir Samarqand
| Issuer | Samarqand, Kingdom of |
|---|---|
| Year | 630-645 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 4.15 g |
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| Obverse lettering | xyswpyr MLK` (Translation: King Shishpir) |
| Reverse description | Central square perforation surrounded by tamgha devices in the field. The principal tamgha of Samarqand is positioned to the left of the hole, with additional subsidiary tamgha symbols placed to the right, above, and below the perforation. The tamghas are rendered in raised relief against a plain field, serving as dynastic and civic emblems identifying the issuing authority. |
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| Additional information |
Samarkand in the first half of the seventh century was a Sogdian city-state under the rule of the Ikhshids, caught between Göktürk suzerainty to the north and the accelerating Arab conquests pressing from the west. The ruler name "Shishpir" is a Sogdian rendering of the Iranian name Shapur, reflecting the deep cultural entanglement between Sogdiana and Sasanian Persia even as the Sasanian Empire itself was collapsing under Arab pressure during precisely these years.
Smirnova's corpus remains the foundational reference for pre-Islamic Sogdian coinage, and number 48 places this squarely among the earlier Samarkand civic issues before the Arab conquest fundamentally disrupted local minting traditions around 712.