Authentic ancient gold coin Stater, Kushan Empire 4th century A.D.
The obverse with the king standing, head turned left, holding scepter in left hand, sacrificing with right hand over altar, trident above.
The reverse with the goddess, Ardoxsho - Ardoksho Nimbate seated facing on throne, holding diadem and cornucopia; Tamgha in upper left field.
Diameter: 20 mm.
Weight: 7.8 g. (0.275137 oz)
The Kushan Empire started as a confederation of ethnically Indo-Europeans nomads who lived in eastern Central Asia. Some scholars connect the Kushans with the Tocharians of the Tarim Basin in China, Caucasian people whose blonde or red-haired mummies have long puzzled observers.
Around the year 20 or 30 CE, the Kushans were driven by the Xiongnu to the borderlands of what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, where they established an independent empire in the region known as Bactria. In Bactria, they conquered the Scythians and the local Indo-Greek kingdoms, the last remnants of Alexander the Great's invasion force. The Kushan Empire became a wealthy trading hub between the peoples of Han China, Sassanid Persia and the Roman Empire. Kushan people developed a culture with significant elements borrowed from many sources. Predominantly Zoroastrian, the Kushans also incorporated Buddhist and Hellenistic beliefs into their own syncratic religious practices. Kushan coins depict deities ranging form Helios and Heracles to the Buddha and Shakyamuni Buddha, to Ahura Mazda, Mithra and Atar, the Zoroastrian fire god. They also used the Greek alphabet, altered to suit spoken Kushan.
After 225 CE, the Kushan Empire crumbled into a western half, which was almost immediately conquered by the Sassanid Empire of Persia, and an eastern half with its capital in the Punjab. The eastern Kushan Empire fell at an unknown date, likely between 335 and 350 CE, to the Gupta king Samudragupta.
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