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Auction: 14010 - Fine Coins, Banknotes, Bonds and Share Certificates of China and Hong Kong
Lot: 1701

Central Asia, Silk Road, Khwarezm, Bivarsar (c. late 3rd- 4th century AD), Tetradrachm, 9.16g, diademed and bearded bust right, crowned with lunar symbol, bead-and-reel border, rev. horseman riding right with legend around, bywrsr mlk', swan-shaped tamgha left (cf. Vainb. B 2 VII), very fine and extremely rare

Khwarezm was situated on the Oxus (Amu Daria) River delta just south of the Aral Sea. A land of some antiquity it was mentioned in the Avesta and in Persian cuneiform inscriptions as Horasmia. Writers of the 6th-5th centuries BC such as Hecateius of Milet, Herodotus, and Ctesias knew of it, and it formed part of the 16th satrap of the Achaemenid rulers. When the nomadic tribes of the Yue-chih moved west following their defeat by the Hsiung-nu in 174 BC a branch settled in the area, usurping the ancient rulers. In the first century BC there is mention of it as a vassal state of K'ang-kiu, with a capital of Yuegian (Urgench) in the Chinese chronicles. It is believed that this new dynasty struck the first coins of Khwarezm in the latter part of the second century BC.

Early coins were based on issues of the Indo-Greeks and had a Greek legend around a central horseman. They gradually developed a distinctive local portraiture and legends in a Khwarezm language using script derived from the Aramaean. Early Khwarezm numismatic history was reconstructed largely by efforts of B. Vainberg, publishing in Moscow. She first dated the coins using archaeological methods then created a chronology with the aid of overstrikes and the 14 different Tamgha types that appear on the coins.

In 712-713 the Arab governor of Khorasan, Qutayba ibn Muslim conquered Khwarezm, after he had received an appeal from the Khwarezm Shah to help in a conflict with his brother. It is thanks to the Arab and Chinese chronicles that the names and approximate dates of the early Khwarezm shahs are known, although occasionally their names appear on the later issues of Khwarezm coinage.


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Estimate
HK$30,000 to HK$40,000