The kingdom of Characene was located near the mouth of the Tigris River at the head of the Persian Gulf, in what is now Modern Kuwait, southern Iraq and Bahrain. In antiquity the Kingdom of Characene was a subjected, semi-autonomous sub kingdom of Parthia. The capitol of The Kingdom of Characene was Charax-Spasinou a major sea trading port between the Mesopotamia and the lands of the far east and India. Characene was the name given to this land by the Ptolemies and Pliny as a geopolitical description of that region. The kingdom was founded in about BC 126 and lasted until the collapse of Parthian civilization in 224 AD.The Kingdom of Characene would not survive as an autonomous state as it had during the collapse of the The Kingdom of the Seleucids. Very little remains of this Kingdom much of the information about them is derived from their surviving ....
TETRADRACHMS!!
Attambelos I (c. BC 47-24)
AR 27.6mm Tetradrachm (12.41g)
c.BC 44-40
Obverse: Diademed bust of Attambelos
Reverse: Hercules on stool, holding famous club. BASIL? ATTAMB? O THP (The Seleucid date is lost to time, it would have been located in exergue.)
Sources:
Wikipedia
The Encyclopedia Iranica
"Trajan, the Roman emperor, visited Charax in 116 AD, during his invasion of Parthia, and watched the ships leaving for India. He reportedly lamented the fact that he was not younger so that he could, like Alexander, have gone there himself."
Posted 09/13/2012 9:39 pm
