Kabul hoard

Kabul hoard
Chaman Hazouri hoard
A late Iranian imitation of 5th century Athenian tetradrachm, minted under Achaemenid rule, of the type included in the Kabul hoard (dated to 380 BCE).[1][2]
Kabul hoard is located in Afghanistan
Kabul hoard
Shown within Afghanistan
Coordinates34°30′53.28″N 69°11′42″E / 34.5148000°N 69.19500°E / 34.5148000; 69.19500
TypeCoin hoard

The Kabul hoard, also called the Chaman Hazouri, Chaman Hazouri or Tchamani-i Hazouri hoard,[3][4] is a coin hoard discovered in the vicinity of Kabul, Afghanistan in 1933. The collection contained numerous Achaemenid coins as well as many Greek coins from the 5th and 4th centuries BCE.[5] Approximately one thousand coins were counted in the hoard.[3][4] The deposit of the hoard is dated to approximately 380 BCE, as this is the probable date of the least ancient datable coin found in the hoard (the imitation of the Athenian owl tetradrachm).[6]

This numismatic discovery has been important in studying and dating the history of the coinage of India, since it is one of the very rare instances when punch-marked coins can actually be dated, due to their association with known and dated Greek and Achaemenid coins in the hoard.[7] The hoard proves that punch-marked coins existed in 360 BCE, as also suggested by literary evidence.[7] According to numismatist Joe Cribb, it suggests that the idea of coinage and the use of punch-marked techniques was introduced to India from the Achaemenid Empire during the 4th century BCE.[8] However, numerous Indian scholars see the development of coinage in the Gangetic plains as an indigenous development.[9]

  1. ^ Cribb, Dating India's Earliest Coins 1985, p. 548: "The Iranian imitations were close copies of silver tetradrachms of Athens; the latest Greek coin of the Chaman Hazuri hoard is an example of these Iranian copies of an Athenian coin."
  2. ^ Bopearachchi & Cribb, Coins illustrating the History of the Crossroads of Asia 1992, pp. 56–57: "The Chaman Hazouri hoard from Kabul discovered in 1933, which contained (...) a local imitation of an Athenian tetradrachm (no.6)" and "No. 6: Coins of this type have been found in the Chaman Hazouri hoard from Kabul and a hoard from Babylon, both deposited c.350 BC"
  3. ^ a b Bopearachchi, Coin Production and Circulation 2000, pp. 300–301.
  4. ^ a b 106. Kabul: Chaman-i Hazouri Archived 2020-06-10 at the Wayback Machine, Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands (CEMML), Colorado State University and US Department of Defense, retrieved 26 October 2018.
  5. ^ Bopearachchi & Cribb, Coins illustrating the History of the Crossroads of Asia 1992, pp. 57–59: "The most important and informative of these hoards is the Chaman Hazouri hoard from Kabul discovered in 1933, which contained royal Achaemenid sigloi from the western part of the Achaemenid Empire, together with a large number of Greek coins dating from the fifth and early fourth century BC, including a local imitation of an Athenian tetradrachm, all apparently taken from circulation in the region."
  6. ^ Bopearachchi, Coin Production and Circulation 2000, p. 309 and Note 65.
  7. ^ a b Cribb, Investigating the introduction of coinage in India 1983, pp. 85–86.
  8. ^ Cribb, Investigating the introduction of coinage in India 1983, p. 101.
  9. ^ Goyal, The Origin and Antiquity of Coinage in India 1999.