MONEY AND POWER IN HELLENISTIC BACTRIA
Author : Simon Glenn
Publisher :
Page : pages
File Size : 32,36 MB
Release : 2020
Category : Bactria
ISBN : 9780897225014
Author : Simon Glenn
Publisher :
Page : pages
File Size : 32,36 MB
Release : 2020
Category : Bactria
ISBN : 9780897225014
Author : Frances Ann Marcinkiewicz Joseph
Publisher :
Page : pages
File Size : 41,35 MB
Release : 2016
Category : Coins
ISBN :
Literary and archaeological evidence for the Hellenistic Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms is extremely sparse, and scholarship relies heavily on extant royal coins. Innovative methodologies are required to extract information from these coins and better understand the mysterious monarchs who ruled a series of small kingdoms in Central and South Asia. In general, the political strategy of Hellenistic monarchs was directed toward the maintenance and expansion of one’s power. Therefore, political power is a valuable factor through which to assess the Bactrian kings. I developed a methodology that I term “power policy numismatics” for using ancient coins to measure political power. This involves treating and analyzing coins as pieces of government policy. Coins can function as policy in two ways. Firstly, they are physical pieces of policy, as they establish, legalize, and standardize a money economy. Secondly, coins contain “assertion policies,” or deliberately designed packages of information with which a monarch could assert his or her rule. Viewing royal coins in this way reveals a monarch’s administrative sophistication, military investment, and legitimization efforts. Combined, these policy aspects illuminate the power of their issuing monarchs. I apply this methodology to King Demetrius I of Bactria. Demetrius is crucial to the history of Hellenistic Central and South Asia. From the seat of power in ancient Afghanistan, Demetrius conquered and expanded south, across the Hindu Kush mountains, and established rule in ancient northwest India. He shifted the center of power to the Indian territories, and laid the groundwork for a significant Greek presence there for almost two centuries. His coins indicate a strong centralized government, a complex bureaucracy, and direct rule. They suggest a level of military investment greater than that of his predecessors and competitive with his large Seleucid neighbors. They also assert a governmental ideology that serves the interests of imperial hegemony. Evaluating coin policy helps to explain Demetrius’ role as a power-player in the international system of the eastern Hellenistic world.
Author : Simon Glenn
Publisher : Numismatic Studies
Page : 300 pages
File Size : 14,43 MB
Release : 2020
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN : 9780897223614
Royal Coinage in Hellenistic Bactria presents the results of a die study including the coins of six kings (Euthydemus I, Demetrius I, Euthydemus II, Pantaleon, Agathocles, Antimachus I). Using a reconstruction of the production of these coins, this book proposes a new, soundly-based history of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom under these kings.
Author : Rachel Mairs
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 688 pages
File Size : 32,26 MB
Release : 2020-11-29
Category : History
ISBN : 1351610287
This volume provides a thorough conspectus of the field of Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek studies, mixing theoretical and historical surveys with critical and thought-provoking case studies in archaeology, history, literature and art. The chapters from this international group of experts showcase innovative methodologies, such as archaeological GIS, as well as providing accessible explanations of specialist techniques such as die studies of coins, and important theoretical perspectives, including postcolonial approaches to the Greeks in India. Chapters cover the region’s archaeology, written and numismatic sources, and a history of scholarship of the subject, as well as culture, identity and interactions with neighbouring empires, including India and China. The Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek World is the go-to reference work on the field, and fulfils a serious need for an accessible, but also thorough and critically-informed, volume on the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms. It provides an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the Hellenistic East.
Author : Helen Wang
Publisher : Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Page : 236 pages
File Size : 39,17 MB
Release : 2023-12-21
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN : 1803276118
24 contributions reflect the vast scope of Joe Cribb’s interests including Asian numismatics, museology, poetry and art. Papers are arranged geographically, then chronologically/thematically including studies on coins, charms and silver currencies in or from China; finds from ancient Central Asia and Afghanistan: coins of South Soghd, and far more.
Author : Wannaporn Rienjang
Publisher : Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
Page : 230 pages
File Size : 14,96 MB
Release : 2022-03-10
Category : Art
ISBN : 1803272341
From the archaeologists and smugglers of the Raj to the museums of post-partition Pakistan and India, from coin-forgers and contraband to modern Buddhism and contemporary art, this fourth volume of the Gandhāra Connections project presents the most recent research on the factors that mediate our encounter with Gandhāran art.
Author : Michael Gehler
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 571 pages
File Size : 25,55 MB
Release : 2022-03-10
Category : History
ISBN : 3658340037
By applying a comparative approach the volume focuses on a select group of „empires“ which are generally not in the focus of empires studies. They are studied in detail and analyzed due to a strict concept that takes into account real history and reception history as well. Reception history becomes more and more an important element in empire studies although this topic is still often more or less underdeveloped. The volume singles out a series of such “forgotten empires”. It aims to provide a methodologically clearly structured as well as a uniform and consistent approach. It develops a general set of questions that help to compare and distinguish these entities. This way the volume intends to examine and to illuminate empires that are generally ignored by modern scholarship.
Author : Frank L. Holt
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 376 pages
File Size : 23,33 MB
Release : 2012-10-18
Category : History
ISBN : 0520953746
Drawing on ancient historical writings, the vast array of information gleaned in recent years from the study of Hellenistic coins, and startling archaeological evidence newly unearthed in Afghanistan, Frank L. Holt sets out to rediscover the ancient civilization of Bactria. In a gripping narrative informed by the author’s deep knowledge of his subject, this book covers two centuries of Bactria’s history, from its colonization by remnants of Alexander the Great’s army to the kingdom’s collapse at the time of a devastating series of nomadic invasions. Beginning with the few tantalizing traces left behind when the ‘empire of a thousand cities’ vanished, Holt takes up that trail and follows the remarkable and sometimes perilous journey of rediscovery. Lost World of the Ancient King describes how a single bit of evidence—a Greek coin—launched a search that drew explorers to the region occupied by the tumultuous warring tribes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Afghanistan. Coin by coin, king by king, the history of Bactria was reconstructed using the emerging methodologies of numismatics. In the twentieth century, extraordinary ancient texts added to the evidence. Finally, one of the ‘thousand cities’ was discovered and excavated, revealing an opulent palace, treasury, temple, and other buildings. Though these great discoveries soon fell victim to the Afghan political crisis that continues today, this book provides a thrilling chronicle of the search for one of the world’s most enigmatic empires.
Author : Rachel Mairs
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 250 pages
File Size : 24,40 MB
Release : 2016-08-05
Category : History
ISBN : 0520292464
In the aftermath of Alexander the Great’s conquests in the late fourth century B.C., Greek garrisons and settlements were established across Central Asia, through Bactria (modern-day Afghanistan) and into India. Over the next three hundred years, these settlements evolved into multiethnic, multilingual communities as much Greek as they were indigenous. To explore the lives and identities of the inhabitants of the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms, Rachel Mairs marshals a variety of evidence, from archaeology, to coins, to documentary and historical texts. Looking particularly at the great city of Ai Khanoum, the only extensively excavated Hellenistic period urban site in Central Asia, Mairs explores how these ancient people lived, communicated, and understood themselves. Significant and original, The Hellenistic Far East will highlight Bactrian studies as an important part of our understanding of the ancient world.
Author : Frank Lee Holt
Publisher : Brill Archive
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 15,29 MB
Release : 1988
Category : History
ISBN : 9789004086128
This study should appeal to anyone interested in the civilizations of Greece and Central Asia, from the expert to the undergraduate.