UYGHUR KHANATE: Anonymous, AE cash (4.55g), early 9th century, H-—, cf. Zeno-36467, Chinese legend rì yuè guang jin ("sun, moon, light, gold") // undeciphered legend, faint slip cast error on obverse; cf. Lin, Meicun, "Ri Yue Guang Jin" and Huigu Moni Religion, in Zhongguo Qianbi Lunwen Ji, 1998 vol. 3, choice VF, RR. Found in several locations in northern Xinjiang and Mongolia, this mysterious and rare coin has sparked debates over its origin and meaning ever since its initial discovery in 1979. The Chinese characters do not appear to refer to any ruler or location, leading some to call it a Buddhist charm (Rhodes & Hall in ONS-170). Others have attributed it to the Uyghur Khanate (744-840), both due to the find locations and the significance of the sun and the moon in the royal titles under the influence of Manichaeism. In 762, the Uyghur khan Bögü Qaghan (759-780, Móuyû Kèhán in Chinese) converted to this religion after encountering four priests in the Tang capital, Luoyang. He soon adopted it as the official religion of the khanate. Among its doctrines, its adherents worshipped the sun and the moon as important deities and prayed every day in their directions. The khans conversion became memorialized on the Karabalgasun Inscriptions during the reign of Alp Bilge Qaghan (808-821, Bâoyì Kèhán), where he is posthumously given the title "kün tängridä qut bulmis" ("he who received blessings from the Sun God"), as opposed to his lifetime title "tängridä qut bulmis" ("he who received blessings from Heaven"). Curiously, Alp Bilge Qaghan and his successors are all referred to as "kün (sun)" or "ay (moon) tängridä qut bulmis" in historical records. This led Lin (1998) to posit these later khans as the issuer(s) of Ri Yue Jin Guang. It is based on this argument that we tentatively assign this coin under the Uyghur Khanate. (See Kenzheakhmet 2007 for a possible decipherment of the reverse.) This particular example was discovered in Mongolia. It is the second-ever example to appear in an auction (see our Auction 31, Lot 2772).
