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!
Unknown Æ - Anonymous Ferghana, facing left, with cross, regular tamgha
| Issuer | Ferghana Khaganate |
|---|---|
| Year | 649-801 |
| Type | Standard circulation coin |
| 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 | Log in to see details |
| 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 | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
| Obverse script | Log in to see details |
| Obverse lettering | Log in to see details |
| Reverse description | Central device consisting of the characteristic lyre-shaped tamgha of Ferghana, distinguished by a cross motif in its centre, the whole forming the dynastic emblem of the ruling house. The tamgha occupies the central field and is surrounded by a circular Sogdian legend running along the periphery of the flan. The design is typical of the anonymous bronze coinage attributed to the Ferghana Khaganate, combining the local dynastic symbol with a Sogdian religious or honorific inscription invoking divine grace. |
| Reverse script | Log in to see details |
| Reverse lettering | prn bgy d`r (Translation: Farnbag, by the Grace of God) |
| Edge | Log in to see details |
| Mint | Log in to see details |
| Mintage | Log in to see details |
| Additional information |
The Ferghana valley, wedged between the Syr Darya and the Tian Shan range, sat at one of the most contested chokepoints on the Silk Road during the seventh and eighth centuries — fought over successively by the Western Türk Khaganate, Tang China, and the expanding Umayyad caliphate. These anonymous bronzes were produced under local rulers who navigated that pressure by adapting coinage traditions from multiple directions simultaneously, which explains the hybrid iconographic vocabulary that makes attribution so difficult. The cross motif on this type has generated genuine scholarly disagreement about Nestorian Christian influence versus purely decorative borrowing.
Smirnova's catalog remains the foundational reference, though her numbering was assembled before several Ferghana hoards surfaced in the 1990s that complicated the sequence.