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Tetradrachm - Huvishka Couch-Lounger, Nana, the Nature Goddess
| Issuer | Kushan Empire |
|---|---|
| Year | 151-190 |
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| Currency | Drachm |
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| Obverse description | King Huvishka depicted in the so-called 'couch-lounger' pose, reclining to the left upon an ornate couch or cushion, rendered in the syncretic Greco-Bactrian artistic tradition characteristic of Kushan coinage. The royal figure is shown in elaborate dress with typical Kushan regalia, including a nimbus or halo around the head. A Bactrian legend identifying the king runs in the field. The flan is irregular, as is typical of struck Kushan bronze issues of this period. |
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| Reverse script | Bactrian |
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| Additional information |
Huvishka's coinage is unusually revealing about the religious pluralism of the Kushan court. Where Kanishka I largely favored Shiva and the Iranian fire deities, Huvishka's issues expanded the divine pantheon dramatically — drawing on Bactrian, Indian, and Hellenistic traditions simultaneously. Nana, a goddess with roots in Mesopotamian Ishtar worship, had by this period been thoroughly absorbed into Central Asian religious practice, appearing across Kushan and Kushano-Sasanian issues for generations.
The "couch-lounger" epithet refers to a specific iconographic type in which Huvishka is depicted reclining — a pose with no clear parallel among other Kushan rulers and still debated among scholars as to its precise ritual meaning.