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Drachm - Gondopharan tamgha countermark Province of Sogdiana or Margiana
| Issuer | Indo-Parthian Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Year | 12 BC - 130 AD |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
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| Technique | Hammered |
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| Reverse script | Greek |
| Reverse lettering | ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΝ ΑΡΣΑΚΟΥ ΕΥΕΡΓΕΤΟΥ ΔΙΚΑΙΟΥ ΕΠΙΦΑΝΟΥΣ ΦΙΛΕΛΛΗΝΟΣ (Translation: King of Kings Arsaces, Beneficent, Just, Illustriously born, Lover of Greece.) |
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| Additional information |
The Gondopharid dynasty is best known in the West through a single disputed legend — that Gaspar, one of the Biblical Magi, was a Gondopharid king, and that the apostle Thomas later preached in the court of a ruler named Gondophares. The Acts of Thomas preserves this claim, and remarkably, it was treated as pious fiction until the mid-nineteenth century, when coins bearing the name Gondophares were excavated and confirmed the dynasty's historical reality. Numismatic evidence alone rehabilitated the entire tradition.
This countermarked issue reflects the dynasty's fragmented administrative reach into Sogdiana and Margiana, where tamgha punches served as revalidation marks rather than new strikes — a practical solution to coinage shortages at the empire's northeastern margins.