Lot 3936

Description

Kushan Coinage, Huvishka, (c.A.D. 260-292), gold stater, (7.85 grams), obv. bust of upper part of king nimbate to left, wearing tall pointed leather helmet and chin-band and a tight-fitting tunic, holding a ribboned spear and a mace in his right hand, legend around, rev. Goddess Nana standing to right, holding a short staff tipped with the protome of a horse, wreath, behind legend downwards NANA, (Gobl 281, cf.M.3196/3195). Slighly polished on the obverse, otherwise good very fine and excessively rare and possibly the second only known specimen.

Ex. J. O'Conner, Sydney, by private treaty August 15, 1972, and Pitchfork Collection, Sale 49 (lot 2343). Gobl in his marathon study of Kushan gold knew of only one other specimen of this type and this from the same obverse die (plate 20), which he notes is in the British Museum. This type was not present in the Dr. Lawrence Brilliant Collection of Kushan gold, in the Spink-Taisei, Singapore sale 9. See comments on portrait style in the next lot. Nana is the deity of nature and fertility, the counterpart to Innana, Ishtar and Astarte of the ancient Near East, and to Anahita of ancient Iran.