User:Donald Trung/Wu Zhu (五銖)/Kingdom of Kucha coinage

Target: Kucha coinage. ✅. --Donald Trung (talk) 11:21, 1 September 2018 (UTC).

Original draft


The Kingdom of Kucha was a Buddhist state located in present day Kucha County, Xinjiang, it was first recorded during the Han dynasty and was later annexed by the Tang, during its time it was a prominent player on the silk road. From around the third or fourth century the Kingdom of Kucha began the manufacture of Wu Zhu cash coins inspired by the diminutive and devalued Wu Zhu's of the post-Han dynasty era in Chinese history. It is very likely that the cash coins produced in Kucha predate the Kaiyuan Tongbao (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.

There are five known types of Kucha cash coins based on the Chinese Wu Zhu's which are usually characterised by the fact that they’re diminutive in size, very thin, and tend to have both weak and irregular inscriptions while four of these types tend to have no inscriptions at all. One type of Kucha Wu Zhu cash coin is the "Han Gui bilingual Wu Zhu coin" (漢龜二體五銖錢, hàn guī èr tǐ wǔ zhū qián) which are characterised by the fact that the obverse side resembles Chinese Wu Zhu coins while the reverse sides feature a local Kucha script above and below the square center hole. As the language of the Kingdom of Kucha isn't well preserved in the modern era many hypotheses have been suggested about its meaning including that it is simply a translation of "Wu Zhu" or feature the name of the Kingdom of Kucha in the Kuśiññe language. Cash coins without any inscription cast in this region is 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 while the other side is rimless, they tend to thin on the outside while they’re thick on the inside and weigh between 0.4 grams 1.7 grams, and have a diameter of 9 to 18 millimetres. The second type can be described as similar to the aforementioned type but have no inner rim, these cash coins generally from 8 to 13 millimetres in diameter and have a weight of 0.2 to 0.4 grams. The third type of these cash coins are also completely without rim 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 describes that there are "small bronze coins" in the city of Kucha while he visited there in the year 630 which is mentioned in his work "Great Tang Records on the Western Regions" during the Tang dynasty. These cash coins are likely to have been 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:

Redirects

 * #REDIRECT Kucha coinage


 * 1) Kucha coin.
 * 2) Kucha coins.
 * 3) Kucha Kingdom coinage.
 * 4) Kucha Kingdom coin.
 * 5) Kucha Kingdom coins.
 * 6) Kingdom of Kucha coinage.
 * 7) Kingdom of Kucha coin.
 * 8) Kingdom of Kucha coins.
 * 9) Cash coins of Kucha.
 * 10) Kucha currency.
 * 11) Kuche coinage.
 * 12) Kuche currency.
 * 13) Kuche coin.
 * 14) Kuche coins.
 * 15) Kuçar coinage.
 * 16) Kuçar currency.
 * 17) Kuçar coin.
 * 18) Kuçar coins.
 * 19) Kuchar coinage.
 * 20) Kuchar currency.
 * 21) Kuchar coin.
 * 22) Kuchar coins.
 * 23) Qiuzi coinage.
 * 24) Qiuzi currency.
 * 25) Qiuzi coin.
 * 26) Qiuzi coins.
 * 27) Quici coinage.
 * 28) Quici currency.
 * 29) Quici coin.
 * 30) Quici coins.
 * 31) Quici Kingdom coinage.
 * 32) Quici Kingdom currency.
 * 33) Quici Kingdom coin.
 * 34) Quici Kingdom coins.
 * 35) Chiu-tzu coinage.
 * 36) Chiu-tzu currency.
 * 37) Chiu-tzu coin.
 * 38) Chiu-tzu coins.
 * 39) Kiu-che coinage.
 * 40) Kiu-che currency.
 * 41) Kiu-che coin.
 * 42) Kiu-che coins.
 * 43) Kuei-tzu coinage.
 * 44) Kuei-tzu currency.
 * 45) Kuei-tzu coin.
 * 46) Kuei-tzu coins.
 * 47) Guizi coinage.
 * 48) Guizi currency.
 * 49) Guizi coin.
 * 50) Guizi coins.

Standard reference templates

 * September 2018.






 * August 2018.