Any books on Afghanistan Ancient/Medieval Coins?

[Virgil H]

Does anyone know of a book that deals with of focuses on coins of Afghanisan that includes the non-Greek coinage? Ideally, I would like both covered. I did a search and didn't come up with anything that looked like it fit the bill. I am interested in ancient and medieval as opposed to modern coinage.

Thank you,
Virgil

[Victor C]

You can find some books in Numiswiki by searching "Afghanistan"

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/numiswiki/search.asp

[Virgil H]

Thank Victor, didn't think of that.

Virgil

[SC]

Afghanistan was often part of a larger polity so its coinage is often found in works that are not concentrated solely on Afghanistan - for example works on Bactrian, Mauryan, Kushan, Hephthalite, Ghaznavid and Ghorid coinage. 

SC

[Virgil H]

Thanks, Shawn, that makes total sense. Since I was in Ghazni, one of most interest to me is the Ghaznavid dynasty that I know of, but know little about. Everything I have found concentrates on Indo-Greeks and then much less on Kushans. I believe the coin I got is very much related to the Kushans, as well as some Hunnic coinage, perhaps. This is a new area for me, have read a lot of history about the graveyard of empires and have even seen British graveyards overgrown and now (in 2011, in any case) grazed by goats and sheep (I even wrote a poem about this particular topic). I will look for some of these more specific topics. And I am still waiting for your book, hopefully it will be released in October like they said it would after shifting the US release. I am really looking forward to it as I have opened up some new interests in late Roman coinage.

Regards,
Virgil

[SC]

Virgil,

Unfortunately I don’t know of any good books dedicated to Ghaznavid coinage.

Mitchiner’s large and expensive The World of Islam covers a few Ghaznavid coins. 

Michael Broome’s A Handbook of Islamic Coins (Spink) is a good book to get.  It is not a catalogue but a general guide covering Islamic coins from the beginning to the 20th century in just over 200 pages.  And it is softcover and relatively cheap. The first four pages of Chapter 3 - Invasion from the East - are dedicated to the Ghaznavids.  Plus it briefly covers Samanid and Qarakhanid coinage, which are often found in northern Afghanistan. 

For my very few Ghaznavid coins I used a couple of collection websites:

The Ghaznavid page of COININDIA
http://coinindia.com/galleries-ghaznavid.html

and Numista
https://en.numista.com/catalogue/ghaznavid_dynasty-1.html

to get the general identification and then confirmed/refined identification through Zeno.ru

SC

[Stkp]

Virgil,

There is of course Stephen Album's Checklist of Islamic Coins.

I can't offer much assistance with respect to the Ghaznavids (I only have one coin). However, I have a gallery that includes Jitals from the Shahis, issued in parts of Afghanistan and Northern India. https://www.forumancientcoins.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=4062
Robert Tye's book may be of assistance.

Stkp

[SC]

Yes, Album's book is good for the history and structure, and is available from his website as a download for free.

But it is unillustrated and so not good for identification purposes.

I have two Ghaznavid AR "gaming" dirhams - which were struck by massed and several other governors.  However, even using zeno.ru I have never been able to find an absolute match or even narrow down to the right governor.....

SC