https://s3.amazonaws.com/atg-prod-oaas-files/haaimagehosting/original/eb691e95f9cfc3e0c87c1949a422e7db.jpg 69157e46dae77157c3638cb37aef8558 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Late Antiquity 4/19 IIIF Collection Metadata UUID 75926b03-cd98-454b-841e-fec873602391 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Gold imitation of a 5th-6th c. Byzantine solidus. Found in a burial, in Turfan, Astana, China Subject The topic of the resource 5th-6th centuries, found in Astana, gold, 0.59 g, British Museum Description An account of the resource Gold coin; imitation of Byzantine coin. Curator's comments Stein 1928, p.648: "Tomb i.5, which lay nearest to i.1 in a southerly direction, was found to contain three bodies, lying with their heads to the south. The one next to the entrance, (a), was big, obviously of a man, while the one in the middle, (b), was small and probably that of a woman. ... From the mouth of (a) a thin gold coin (Pl.CXX) was recovered, derived like the one in Ast.i.3 from a type of Justinian I, but struck only on one side and manifestly a more distant imitation." Stein 1928, p.646: "The fact that out of the four coins actually found by us in the mouths of Astana corpses three are Byzantine gold pieces or imitations of such pieces (Ast.i.3.023; Ast.i.5.08; Ast.i.6.03) and one a Sasanian silver coin (Ast.v.2.02) might naturally predispose us to connect this practice with the ancient Greek custom of placing a coin between the lips of the dead as the fare to Charon, the ferryman of Hades. But the reference with which M. Chavannes kindly supplied me in 1916 to a Buddhist story in the Chinese Tripitaka suggests that the custom was not unknown in the Far East also. [fn4: See Chavannes, Cinq cents contes et apologues extraits du Tripitaka chinois, i, p.248] It must further be borne in mind that as China had never had a gold or silver coinage, those who at Turfan wished to provide their dead with an adequate obolus for the journey to the world beyond would necessarily have to use a coin of Western origin for their pious purpose, if they wished it to be of precious metal." IIIF Item Metadata UUID 74e133af-4d4b-4153-b29e-ff029614b61b