The Tillya Tepe Gold Coin and the Gandharan Connections of the Tillya Tepe Burials.

• Author: Cribb, Joe

The Tillya Tepe burials excavated by Viktor Sarianidi and a Soviet-Afghan team in 1978 in northern Afghanistan have been the subject of much debate, particularly about their Greek and nomad artistic elements. The following exploration in contrast focuses on the Gandharan elements of the finds, particularly on the interpretation, date, and broader significance of the gold coin inscribed in Gandhari, depicting a lion and a standing male figure holding a wheel, found in burial no. 4. This burial was of a male, the other five being of females (burials nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6), his wives or close companions in death. Two other burials were noticed, but circumstances prevented their excavation. Each of the burials, located at a site near Sherberghan in northwestern Afghanistan, was accompanied by rich arrays of gold jewelry and precious objects. These excavations and finds were published in detail by Viktor Sarianidi in his 1985 and 1989 volumes.

The Tillya Tepe gold coin (Fig. 1; Sarianidi 1985: 250, tomb 4, no. 25, pls. 188-89, illustration 131; 1989: 109) now resides with the National Museum of Afghanistan (reference no. 04.40.392). It has been published many times and several explanations of its design offered. Its most important feature is that it has been claimed that the male figure on it is one of the earliest representations of the Buddha in human form (Fussman 1982). In the following investigation this claim will be questioned and its meaning and context will be examined.

The dating of the burials is normally framed in relation to the presence in burial no. 3 of a Roman coin of known date (Fig. 2). This coin is part of an issue made in Lugdunum (today, Lyon) in southeastern Gaul during the reign of the Roman emperor Tiberius (14-37 CE). The widely accepted view therefore is that the burials took place in the first half of the first half century CE, i.e., ca. 15-50. This dating is supported by the presence of three Chinese Han-dynasty mirrors made in the late first century BCE to early first century CE in burials 2, 3, and 6 (Fig. 3). The mirrors are all of the type called mingwen lianhu (inscribed linked arcs type) produced in the late Western Han period, i.e., in the decades before 8 CE (Huo and Shi 2013, 2: 340 and 342, fig. 9, no. 5). A fragment of a mirror of the same type was collected by Charles Masson at Begram (Fabregues et al. 2021: 301, fig. 135, no. 8). The presumption has been that the burials were all made at the same time, with the female burials representing the wives and concubines of the male in burial no. 4, who were killed and buried with him (Schiltz 2008a: 61; 2008b: 226; Francfort 2011: 277). The burial goods of the male suggest that he was a ruler (Francfort 2011: 325-40). This status is suggested by the wealth of the graves, his burial with high-status weapons, and the presence of these Chinese bronze mirrors, which would only be present in the region as diplomatic gifts, either given directly or passed on by a more important ruler to a local ruler loyal to him. The similarity of the burial method and the range of grave goods support the contention that the burials were simultaneous, but the deteriorated state of the human remains offers no evidence to determine the nature of their deaths. The physical relationship between the male burial and the surrounding female burials is certain, but it is not clear from the archaeology whether the varying distances of the female burials from the male one were an indication of varied status (Yatsenko 2001: 75), as is suggested by the varying richness of the grave goods, or of the elapse of time between burials.

The cultural and political connections of the burials have been the focus of much discussion (Grenet 2012: 3), and attempts have been made to link them with the Da Yuezhi (Sarianidi 1985; Rtveladze 1993/94: 92-93; Francfort 2011) or the Scythian/Saka (Pugachenkova and Rempel' 1986 and 1991) invaders of Afghanistan and with other inner Asian nomad groups, such as the Sarmatians, the Xiongnu (Francfort 2011: 325-27; 2012: 100), and the Kangju (Schiltz 2008a: 63; 2008b: 231). Apart from the artifacts with Roman and Chinese connections, there has also been much said about the Greek, Roman, Indian, Parthian, and nomad aspects of many of the objects. The use of Gandhari written in Kharosthi on the Tillya Tepe gold coin piece places its origins in Gandhara (or its surrounding regions). This points to the connection of the buried individuals with Gandhara and this connection and its significance will be explored here.

THE TILLYA TEPE GOLD COIN

The coin with lion and male figure holding a wheel first became known to scholarship in the year after its discovery when it was illustrated in an article by Sarianidi providing a general overview of his new excavations (1979). The article made no comment on the coin, but it was discussed in the following year by the Indian scholar B. N. Mukherjee (1980). On the basis of the tiny illustration published by Sarianidi, Mukherjee misread the Kharosthi inscriptions on the coin and suggested that the inscription on the side with the lion was a mixture of Kharosthi and Aramaic and the whole inscription named a local king called "Bosaharigadabh'aaspa king of Bs'bhrarhpra." He observed that the male figure could be taken as a representation of the Greek god Heracles, and linked the wheel with the Indian god Krishna. He positioned this representation in the context of the Greek historian Arrian's association of Heracles with Mathura (Arrian, Indika: [section]8.5), the city of Krishna. He dated the coin to the late first century BCE to early first century CE.

Soon after this the excavator and his Soviet colleague Genadii Koshelenko made the first formal publication of the coin (Sarianidi and Koshelenko 1982: 308 [fig. 1, no. 5] and 315). According to them it was understood to be "Indian" and the designs were described as [phrase omitted]

[phrase omitted]" (a male nude (?) figure, to the right, leans on a "dharma wheel" with eight spokes) and "[phrase omitted] (a lion standing to the right with one of its front paws raised. In front of him is a nandipada symbol). They proposed that the inscriptions were in Prakrit written in Kharosthi script and related to Buddhism and translated the inscription as "[phrase omitted]" (fearless lion) (or "[phrase omitted]" [like a lion, fearless]) and "[phrase omitted]" (turning the wheel of dharma). They dated the piece to the transition in the first century CE, from the Indo-Greek to the Kushan period. Sarianidi later summarized these opinions when he published his detailed account of the Tillya Tepe excavations (1989: 109)

In the same year Gerard Fussman (1982: 165-69) discussed the coin further and modified Sarianidi and Koshelenko's description of the images: "a bearded man apparently dressed in a transparent tunic reaching below the knee, pushing an eight-spoke wheel to the right" and "maned lion, standing on the right, in front of the symbol called nandipada- or nandyavarta." He also reread the Kharosthi inscriptions as "le lion, qui a chasse la peur" and "celui qui met en mouvement la roue de la Loi." He observed that the style of Kharosthi placed it in the period ca. 50 BCE-ca. 50 CE. He identified the male figure as a failed attempt at representing the Buddha: "un essai avorte de representer le Buddha sous la forme d'un Zeus poussant une roue" and attributed its production to an Indo-Greek engraver working in northwestern India in the last quarter of the first century BCE, linking the designs with the coins of the Indo-Greek king Agathocles (ca. 180 BCE). He considered it to be "Fun des exemples les plus anciens connus de representation du Buddha sous forme humaine." He saw it as a failed attempt at a representation of the Buddha that did not meet with acceptance: "II s'agit done d'une representation dont on peut dire qu'elle est greco (Zeus)-bouddhique (roue), mais qui n'a pas eu de suite, peut-etre parce que ce type de Buddha, par sa barbe et son attitude d'effort, heurtait des concepts indiens qui font du Buddha un personnage rase et impassible." He referred to the object as "monnaie" (coin), but in inverted commas to indicate the uncertain nature of the piece.

David MacDowall (1987: 179) repeated Fussman's 1982 assessment and emphasized the importance of the piece for the development of Buddhist imagery. He agreed with Fussman's association of the figure with Zeus and his dating of the treatment of its inscriptions to the period ca. 50 BCE to 50 CE. He linked the piece with the imagery of coinage in the same period and with the aniconic phase of Buddhist art.

Fussman further discussed the coin in an essay on the numismatic evidence for Gandharan art (1987: 71-72). He placed a question mark after "likeness of Zeus(?)," because it had been suggested to him in a personal communication by B. N. Mukherjee (p. 84 n. 22) that the image might be Heracles. Mukherjee pointed to the lump on the figure's shoulder and the tail hanging behind as an indication that the figure wore the skin of Heracles' Nemean lion. Fussman rejected Mukherjee's observations, as he saw Zeus as a more likely association for the Buddha and suggested that the tail could be a die defect and that the lump on the shoulder could be Zeus's aegis. Nevertheless he kept his options open, describing the figure as "the Buddha in a truly Greek manner (as Zeus or Herakles)... the earliest known evidence for a hellenised Buddha image." He read the inscriptions as "the lion who chased away fear" and "he who sets in motion the Wheel of the Law." His dating in this discussion was slightly wider: "c. 50 B.C. But this is a wild guess and the token may be later" (p. 72), "c. 50-1 B.C." (p. 77).

Pugachenkova and Rempel' did not discuss the imagery of the Tillya Tepe gold coin in their article on the finds from the burials, but suggested that it should be linked to the Indo-Parthian kingdom and accordingly dated...