Late Kushan Copper hoard (?) from the collection of S.R.O in Directorate of Archaeology and Museums Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Abstract

The coins registered under the accession no. S.R.O 2764, along with thousands of other coins and antiquities were received in the Directorate of Archaeology and Museums Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after the Eighteenth Constitutional Amendment of Pakistan. The current paper represents the first batch of the coins after its proper documentation and cataloging (001-213) containing 20 examples of Vasudeva I, 139 of Kanishka II, 41 of Vasishka, 12 of Kushano-Sasanian imitations and a single illegible coin. These coins itself were confiscated at Peshawar airport and therefore it cannot be claimed that it for sure was a hoard however the chronological sequence and continuity in the types suggests that it probably was a hoard which was deposited at the time of Vasishka somewhere in the Peshawar valley, the ancient Gandhara.
Our special thanks are to Dr. Shah Nazar Khan (Director), who permitted us to study and publish these coins. The authors also wish to thank Dr. Gul Rahim Khan and Professor Nasim Khan for their contribution to the research on which this report is based.