The coins of the Huna peoples are the most important source on the history of the Hephthalites, and the one that can most clearly be tied to a people.[1] One survey notes that the Hephthalites, who controlled the Silk Road in Central Asia, took part in the trade with Iran, Byzantium, India and China.[1]

The classification

The standard classification dates from 1967. It sorts the coins of the “Iranian Huns” into four groups: the Kidarites, the Alchons, the Nezaks and the Hephthalites.[2] The system leaves out the Chionites, for whom it finds no coins.[2] The order of the types inside each group is settled in outline, but the absolute dates are not. The places given for the mints are hypothetical, and the legends in Middle Persian, Bactrian and Indian scripts are hard to read.[3] A copper scroll inscription in the Schøyen collection gave a new view of the history of these rulers, and the classification has to be revised in some points.[4]

Kidarites

The Kidarites minted gold dinars after late Kushan and Kushano-Sasanian models in the area of Kabul and in Gandhara, from about 385 to about 440.[5] The legend names Lord Kidara, great king of the Kushans, and the reverse shows Shiva with his bull Nandi.[5] A hoard at Tepe-i Marenjan near Kabul held eleven dinars of Kidara with Sasanian drachms, the latest of Shapur III (383 to 388), and it suggests that Kidarite rule began in the 380s.[5] One interpretation of the legend prefers Kay Wahram to Kidara.[6] Seven rare silver coins struck at Samarkand carry the name Kidara and continue the archer type of the older Sogdian coinage.[6]

Alchons

The Alchons are known almost only from the inscriptions on their coins, where the Bactrian word alxono or alxanno stands for the name.[7] Their first coins reused dies of Shapur II and re-engraved them. Later types add a tamga and a crescent, and the first bilingual coin carries the name of Khingila in Brahmi.[8] The coins bear the names Khingila, Javukha, Mehama, Toramana and, later, Mihirakula and Narana.[9] Coins of Mihirakula show the silver content of the drachms falling.[10] The copper scroll shows that several of these kings reigned side by side in different regions.[11]

Nezaks

The Nezak coins come from the region of Ghazni and Kabul and are dated from about 460.[11] The purity of their drachms changed over time, and they finally became pure copper.[12]

Hephthalites

The coins of the Hephthalites proper are placed between 476 or 477 and 563 or 565.[12] At the first date the Sasanian king Peroz was captured and freed for a ransom of 30 mule-loads of silver drachms. At the second date the Hephthalites were defeated.[12] Drachms of Peroz found in numbers in northern Tokharistan are taken to confirm the ransom.[13]

The Hephthalites imitated the coins of Peroz. Their imitations show the bust of Peroz in his third crown and a legend naming the mint of Balkh in Bactrian letters. The letters ēb on the obverse are understood as an abbreviation of ēbodalo, “Hephthalite”.[14] Peroz’s drachms also circulated with Bactrian countermarks and the tamgas of local rulers.[14] Imitations have been found at Kara-tepe, Khairabad-tepe, Dalverzin-tepe and Budrach.[15]

The copper coins of Shor-tepe near Karshi show a governor without a crown. They have been dated between 480 and 563 or 567 and taken for the issues of a Hephthalite governor of Nakhsheb. Their Hephthalite origin is denied.[16]

After the Göktürk conquest

The Göktürks and Khosrow I defeated the Hephthalites in about 563 to 565 and divided their kingdom.[17] Coins on the Sasanian model went on being struck in Central Asia until the middle of the eighth century. The coins of Khosrow II were imitated above all, often with legends in three languages.[17] From the sixth century countermarks were used on local and foreign drachms to confine their circulation to particular political domains.[17]

Sogdiana

In Sogdiana a coin of the Chinese type circulated, round with a square hole in the centre. Silver coins imitating those of Warahran V, with the Pahlavi legend changed to Sogdian, were struck in Bukhara and are called the coins of the Bukhar Khudats.[18] The survey says that the mixture of coin types reflects the political separateness of the holdings in the time of the Hephthalites and after them.[19]

References

  1. ^ a b Kurbanov 2010, p. 91
  2. ^ a b Kurbanov 2010, p. 93
  3. ^ Kurbanov 2010, p. 93–94
  4. ^ Kurbanov 2010, p. 93, 97
  5. ^ a b c Kurbanov 2010, p. 94
  6. ^ a b Kurbanov 2010, p. 95
  7. ^ Kurbanov 2010, p. 96
  8. ^ Kurbanov 2010, p. 101
  9. ^ Kurbanov 2010, p. 96–102
  10. ^ Kurbanov 2010, p. 98
  11. ^ a b Kurbanov 2010, p. 102
  12. ^ a b c Kurbanov 2010, p. 104
  13. ^ Kurbanov 2010, p. 104–105
  14. ^ a b Kurbanov 2010, p. 105
  15. ^ Kurbanov 2010, p. 105–106
  16. ^ Kurbanov 2010, p. 106–107
  17. ^ a b c Kurbanov 2010, p. 107
  18. ^ Kurbanov 2010, p. 91–92
  19. ^ Kurbanov 2010, p. 92

Literature

  • Aydogdy Kurbanov, The Hephthalites: Archaeological and Historical Analysis (2010)

Related

What links here3

Peoples
Alchon Huns · Nezak Shahs
Institutions and Titles
The Economy of the Steppe Empires

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Coinage of the Huna Peoples.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/institutions/huna-coinage/

Last revised: 8 November 2026