Drachm - Kidara Sassanian style, type 11A, Gandhara mint

The Kidarites emerged from the broader Kushano-Sassanian collapse of the mid-4th century, seizing control of Bactria and Gandhara as Shapur II's campaigns disrupted the existing power structures across the eastern Iranian world. Their coinage is deliberately imitative — the Sassanian royal bust style was adopted not from cultural submission but as a calculated assertion of legitimacy, signaling continuity of authority to populations accustomed to that visual grammar of rulership.

Göbl's type 11A is specific to the Gandhara mint attribution, distinguished by die characteristics documented in his Kushan corpus. The series remains difficult to sequence chronologically with precision, as no Kidarite regnal inscriptions survive that can be independently dated.