Hephthalite Coin from an Early Medieval Burial at Gorny-10, Northern Altai

Hephthalite Coin from an Early Medieval Burial at Gorny-10,
Northern Altai

doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2021.49.4.100-108

N.N. Seregin¹, V.V. Tishin^{1, 2}, and N.F. Stepanova^3
1Altai State University, Pr. Lenina 61, Barnaul, 656049, Russia
²Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Sakhyanovoy 6, Ulan-Ude, 670047, Russia
³Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences, Pr. Akademika Lavrentieva 17, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia

We describe a silver coin found in one of the burials at Gorny-10 cemetery in northern Altai, excavated by expeditions from the Altai State University in 2000-2003. The coin was discovered in a destroyed burial of children (No. 46) along with other informative artifacts, which are rather uncommon in such burials. Judging by horse harness and ornaments, the assemblage falls in the interval from the late 6th to early 8th century AD. The coin is an imitation of the drachm of the Sasanian shah Peroz I to classify as type or emission 287, according to R. Gobl, that is one of the most common types of Hephthalite coins. The elemental concentration of the specimen has a high content of silver and no gold. The specimen has no analogs in North or Central Asia. It could have been brought to the forest-steppe Altai by Turks, who conquered the Hephthalite Empire in the first decades of the late 6th century AD.

Keywords: Coins, imitation, Hephthalites, northern Altai, Early Middle Ages, chronology