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I could consider it Kushan after the clan Yuezhi toppled the remnants of the Indo-Greek Kingdom-Ancientnoob
It is interesting how Greek script continued to be a desired feature on the coinage of these nomadic kings.
I recall seeing a depiction of a coin of a king of Transoxiana (khwarazm) that had tried to use Greek, but the legend was all a blunder.
Gondophares IV "Sases" (circa 55 AD) is always confused with his predecessor and namesake, Gondophares I (circa 20 BC) and so is known more by the name of Sases.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SasesHeraios seems to have been the first king of the Kushans, reigning from about 1 - 30 AD.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeraiosYet the Indo-Parthians remained free from the Kushan armies by the mountains of the Hindu-Kush.
It seems that after the death of Gondophares IV in 55 AD, whatever was left of his kingdom was overthrown by the Kushan armies led by Kujula Kadphises, second king of the Kushans (reigned circa 30 - 80 AD)
On Kujula...
"He invaded Anxi (Indo-Parthia), and took the Gaofu (Kabul) region." - Book of the Later Han (written in the 5th century AD).
On the Parthians, they were really Dahae tribes, inhabiting the region of modern Turkmenistan, since at least 500 BC.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DahaeIt was when Arsaces I led members of this tribe to invade Parthia, then under Seleucid control, in around 250 BC, the Parthian kingdom came about.
The "Yuezhi" (Da Yuezhi in Han Chinese) seem to have inhabited the Tarim Basin of modern western China probably since at least 500 BC as well.
Both the Parthians and the Kushans tribes used a "Tamga" to represent their individual clans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TamgaYet the Kushan male nobility follwed a Turkic practice of artificial skull deformation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artifi..._deformationThat is a practise not officially recorded as being done by the Parthian male nobility.
Certainly the Scythian male nobility seem to have practised this, as seen on the "Pazyryk rug" showing a mounted nobleman, note the norrowness of the head and slant of the forehead.
Looking at this Tetradrachm of Arsaces I, the first king of the Parthians, it is not beyond possibility that he, and all the male nobility of the Parthians underwent artificial skull deformation as well.
The "conical" shape to his head, seems to be due to that.
Yet judging by coins of king Phraates II (circa 128 BC) any possible practise of artificial skull deformation does not seem to have been continued.
If it had been, perhaps it was due to wishing to appeal to both the Persians and the Greeks by not looking so "barbaric".
Yet the long "conical" hat of the Parthian kings continued to be worn as a crown by king after king, even the early coins of king Ardashir I of the Sassanid Persian dynasty depict him wearing that crown.
So perhaps the Dahae and the Da Yuezhi had a common origin and the replacement of rule by the Indo-Parthians by the Kushans seemed to the local Indians as barely a change.
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Posted 01/02/2013 8:29 pm
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