Catalog
See full images - free registration
Continue with Google - no registration!
or register with email
Why register? Just to keep bots out of our catalog. Your email stays private - we will never share it or send you anything uninvited. We guarantee you that!
Tetradrachm - Bivarsar Middle Period
| Issuer | Choresmia (ancient) |
|---|---|
| Year | 300-350 |
| Type | Log in to see details |
| Value | Log in to see details |
| Currency | Log in to see details |
| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | Log in to see details |
| Diameter | 29 mm |
| Thickness | Log in to see details |
| Shape | Log in to see details |
| Technique | Log in to see details |
| Orientation | Log in to see details |
| Engraver(s) | Log in to see details |
| In circulation to | Log in to see details |
| Reference(s) | Log in to see details |
| Obverse description | Diademed bearded bust of the king facing right, rendered in the local Khwarezmian artistic tradition with schematized facial features. The effigy displays a prominent stepped diadem across the forehead, with a bearded profile showing a pronounced eye rendered in the characteristic Central Asian style. The bust is contained within a beaded border encircling the coin's periphery, with Khwarezmian script legend visible in the surrounding field. The flan is irregular and slightly clipped, consistent with hammered silver coinage of this period and region. |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Log in to see details |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Edge | Plain |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
Choresmia — the oasis kingdom centered on the lower Amu Darya — maintained a remarkably independent coinage tradition long after neighboring Sogdia and Bactria had absorbed heavy Hellenistic and later Kushano-Sasanian influences. The Middle Period issues classified by Vainberg represent a phase when the local dynastic style had stabilized into its own idiom, distinct from the Sasanian pressure bearing down from the southwest during the third and fourth centuries.
Vainberg's typology for Chorasmian coinage, published in her 1977 monograph, remains the foundational reference, though the chronological brackets she assigned continue to be debated as new excavation data emerges from the region.