Catalog of Coins of Chach III-VIII A.D. by V.D. Shagalov and A.V Kuznetsov, FAN Acadamy of Science of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Tashkent, 2006. (Bilingual Russian and English) 325 pages hardbound
My copy of this book was purchased from one of the authors by mail and came in reasonable time considering where it was coming from. At $40 postpaid, it is worth considering about at the time that you spend that same amount on these coins which are, as of now, neither common
nor popular but should be increasingly in demand in the future from fans of the Silk Road regions.
The book is illustrated with
good photos and excellent drawings. Where possible, multiple copies of the same coin are shown in recognition of what the authors expressed on page 65, "An image in most cases hits the coin's
circle fragmentarily." A coin with three clear letters is not bad for some issues. Add the fact that many specimens are not clearly struck, chipped or corroded and we understand why a certain amount of the book is devoted to the reconstruction of the legends with opinions credited to several prominent scholars in the region. Coin legends are drawn below the photos and reconstruction tables with transliteration. Given that Sogdian legends written in a cursive script can be a
bit of a challenge given clear examples, I find this
work very impressive. This book will not turn you into a linguist but it will shed significant light on a few squiggles you see barely on the edge of some of your coins.
I studied Russian language in high school (1964). As a result I will be spending 99% of my time with this book in the English translation. The English is understandable if not very idiomatic. In almost every case, I
had no doubt what was being said but in several cases it was not exactly the way I would have said it. For example, "Coins were manufactured in both coining technique and moulding" might be better understood
had it been rendered using the English terms struck and
cast. Where both techniques were used, I would have appreciated notes telling which was used for each photographed example. In most cases this is clear from the photo.
The book identifies nine major groups (by the large central tamgha on the
reverse) which are broken down into
types and versions. Some text addresses relative dates and differences but much of this information is a
work in progress. Readers may not know as many answers as they might like from the book but they will be better equipped to address the questions.
In summary, this is a book that will be of interest to a small fraction of those interested in late ancient or early
medieval coins. I suspect 99% of USA collectors would not recognize the word "Chach". For the 1% who have any interest in this very specialized subject, I highly recommend this book.
Group 6
Type 2 Version 1 (a common one) wbwx kny? ("Chach's ruler" if I'm reading it correctly):
