Drachm - Kujula copy Kushana Imitative Type

Kujula Kadphises founded the Kushan Empire by unifying the five Yueban tribes sometime in the first century AD, and his earliest copper issues were deliberate imitations of Hermaeus, the last Greek king of Bactria — a calculated political move to claim legitimacy by association with the preceding Hellenistic order. This piece belongs to that imitative tradition, struck in the smallest denominations that would have passed through the hands of ordinary subjects across the Hindu Kush.

Mitchiner catalogues considerable die variation within this type, and attribution between official Kujula issues and contemporary local copies can be genuinely difficult at this weight class.