Kucha coinage was produced in the Kingdom of

Kucha Kucha or Kuche (also: ''Kuçar'', ''Kuchar''; , Кучар; zh, t= 龜茲, p=Qiūcí, zh, t= 庫車, p=Kùchē; ) was an ancient Buddhist kingdom located on the branch of the Silk Road that ran along the northern edge of what is now the Taklam ...

, a Buddhist, Tocharian-speaking state located in the

Tarim Basin The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in Xinjiang, Northwestern China occupying an area of about and one of the largest basins in Northwest China.Chen, Yaning, et al. "Regional climate change and its effects on river runoff in the Tarim Basin, Ch ...

(present-day Kucha County, Xinjiang), during the 1st millennium CE. There are five known types of Kucha cash coins, all of them based on Chinese Wu Zhu. These coins are usually characterized by their diminutive size and thin shape. They are generally believed to have been produced between the years 265 and 589.

The kingdom

The Kingdom of Kucha was first recorded during the

Han dynasty The Han dynasty was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China (202 BC9 AD, 25–220 AD) established by Liu Bang and ruled by the House of Liu. The dynasty was preceded by the short-lived Qin dynasty (221–206 BC ...

and was later annexed by the Tang. During its existence, it was a prominent player on the

Silk Road The Silk Road was a network of Asian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over , it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the ...

. From around the third or fourth century, the Kingdom of Kucha began to manufacture Chinese-style cash coins inspired by the diminutive and devalued Wu Zhu currency of the post-

era. It is very likely that the cash coins produced in Kucha predate the

Kaiyuan Tongbao The Kaiyuan Tongbao (), sometimes romanised as ''Kai Yuan Tong Bao'' or using the archaic Wade-Giles spelling ''K'ai Yuan T'ung Pao'', was a Tang dynasty cash coin that was produced from 621 under the reign of Emperor Gaozu and remained in pr ...

(開元通寳) and that the native production of coins stopped sometime after the year 621 when the Wu Zhu cash coins were discontinued in

China proper China proper, also called Inner China, are terms used primarily in the West in reference to the traditional "core" regions of China centered in the southeast. The term was first used by Westerners during the Manchu people, Manchu-led Qing dyn ...

Coin description

There are five known types of Kucha cash coins based on Chinese Wu Zhu. These coins are usually characterized by their diminutive size and thin shape. Four types tend to have no inscriptions at all, while one type of coin is the "Han Gui bilingual Wu Zhu coin" (漢龜二體五銖錢, ''hàn guī èr tǐ wǔ zhū qián'') which is characterized by its obverse side resembling Chinese Wu Zhu coins and reverse side featuring a local Kucha script above and below the square center hole. The Kuchean (Kuśiññe) language – the variety of Tocharian spoken in Kucha at the time – is not well understood (and was completely forgotten until its rediscovery in the early 20th century). Consequently, many hypotheses have been suggested about the meaning of the inscription, including that it is a literal translation of "Wu Zhu", or an alternate name of the Kingdom of Kucha in Kuchean.Anything Anywhere
CHINA, coins of that western region called Xinjiang/Sinkiang. - Xinjiang means "new land." Formerly known to westerners as "Chinese Turkestan." Approximately 5000 years of history, not particularly well written up in English and perhaps some of the Chinese studies are somewhat politically/ethnically biased
By Bob Reis. Retrieved: 25 August 2018. Cash coins without any inscription cast in this region (龜茲無文小銅錢, ''qiūcí wú wén xiǎo tóng qián'') are generally believed to have been produced between the years 265 and 589. The first variant of these cash coins are round in shape and have a rim around the square centre hole on one side (the other side is rimless). They tend to be thin on the outside and thicker on the inside, and they weigh between 0.4 grams and 1.7 grams with a diameter of 9 to 18 millimetres. The second variant of coin is similar to the aforementioned type but has no inner rim. These cash coins generally ranged from 8 to 13 millimetres in diameter and had a weight of 0.2 to 0.4 grams. The third type of these cash coins are also completely rimless but are square in shape and have a square centre hole. They tend to be very thin with diameters between 8 and 11 millimetres and weigh between 0.2 and 0.5 grams. The final variant are irregularly shaped, diminutive in size, thin, and are cast of poor workmanship. Some are merely five millimetres in diameter and weigh as little as 0.2 grams. The Buddhist monk

Xuanzang Xuanzang (; ; 6 April 6025 February 664), born Chen Hui or Chen Yi (), also known by his Sanskrit Dharma name Mokṣadeva, was a 7th-century Chinese Bhikkhu, Buddhist monk, scholar, traveller, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making ...

describes seeing "small bronze coins" during his visit to Kucha in the year 630 in his work "Great Tang Records on the Western Regions" during the

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, c=唐朝), or the Tang Empire, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907, with an Wu Zhou, interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dynasty and followed ...

. These cash coins are likely to have been the inscribed variant, the "Han Gui bilingual Wu Zhu coin".

List of cash coins produced by the Kingdom of Kucha

List of cash coins produced by the Kingdom of Kucha:

References

Sources

* * ZHOU Ti, ''A new look at Sino-Kharoshthi coins (Horse coins of Khotan)'', (

Shijiazhuang Shijiazhuang; Mandarin: ; formerly known as Shimen and romanized as Shihkiachwang is the capital and most populous city of China's Hebei Province. A prefecture-level city southwest of Beijing, it administers eight districts, three county-le ...

: Hebei renmin chubanshe, 2018) n the Numismatics series, series editor Dai Jianbing 173 pp. (周倜著：《汉佉二体钱（和田马钱）新探》，河北人民出版社，2018年。（钱币学丛书，丛书主编：戴建兵）。). (in

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

). {{Chinese currency and coinage Coins of ancient China History of Xinjiang Economy of China Silk Road numismatics Chinese numismatics Cash coins

The kingdom

Coin description

List of cash coins produced by the Kingdom of Kucha

See also

References

Sources