Talk:Kujula Kadphises

Greek script legends

Corrections are needed to the "greek legends" in the righthand box with the coin photos.

The greek text is a mixture of Latin and Greek characters -- it should be made all standard Greek capital letters.

Especially note:

The Latin "V" should be Greek capital upsilon (looks like "Y")

In "KAΔAΦEC" the Latin "C" should be Greek capital sigma (standard sigma, not lunate sigma as the actual character on the coin seems to have a middle projection)

Several of the words are also suspicious -- may be a local dialect and/or use local letterforms, or may be typos in Wikipedia text.

The original author should check the text of the numismatic source.

Thanks for the heads-up. I checked the legends as described in Whitehead "Coins of the Indo-Greeks".

For the first coins the exact legend is: BACIΛEΩΣ ΣTHPOΣΣΥ EPMAIOΥ. As far as I know the C starts to replace the Σ around that time in Hellenistic Greek script.

For the second coin, the exact legend is KOZOΛA KAΔAΦEC XOPANOΥ ZAOOΥ. Same remarks. The only inexact character is the "P" in XOPANOΥ, which should be written like P with the curve (semi-circle) located in the middle of the vertical bar (instead of his top extremity):Þ. This is the "Sh" sound, as in "Kushan", developed specially for the Kushan language.

Indeed the Greek on these coins is barbarized. For example ΣTHPOΣΣΥ is thought to be a deformation of ΣΩTHPOΣ (Sotiros), the traditional title of Hermaeus on his coins. And, yes, BACIΛEΩΣ should be written BAΣIΛEΩΣ. PHG 10:57, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

You didn't address one of the concerns of the original comment - the Greek text you've written is mostly normal Latin letters, with Greek only used whenever there is no Latin letter with the same shape. Even though some of them look the same, Greek letters are encoded differently than Latin letters in digital text (you can click on the letters in the legend below the edit box if you can't easily type Greek). There's also no need to substitute C and Þ when the correct characters Ϲ and Ϸ exist (although they are somewhat less common in fonts). I've fixed everything in the article to use the correct characters. DopefishJustin 06:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Years

The years were listed in standard birth, death format. But the year thirty appears to be start of reign, not birth, according to both the succession boxes and the statement in son's article, ""Qiujiu Que (Ch: 丘就卻 "Ch’iu-chiu-ch’üeh", Kujula Kadphises) was more than eighty years old when he died. His son, Yan Gaozhen (Ch:閻高珍)". Gene Nygaard 06:57, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Anxi = Parthia or Indo-Parthia?

I have reversed the identification of Anxi back Indo-Parthia because there is no evidence of Kujula invading "Parthia Proper" but plenty showing him conquering much if not all of "Indo-Parthia." John Hill 05:38, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Updates

I have taken the liberty of updating two quotations that were based on my early draft translation of the text from the Hou Hanshu that were online at the Silk Road Seattle website, for more up-to-date ones from my 2009 book, Through the Jade Gate to Rome. I have removed all the references to footnotes from the quoted text, as they are not checkable here. If anyone has any concerns about me giving quotes from my own book, please raise it here and notify me on my Discussion page. Many thanks, John Hill (talk) 01:01, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

I cannot find Professor Sims-William's early translation of the Rabatak Inscription on the net any more, but he kindly provided an up-dated "provisional" translation for me when I was writing my book whicw, very fortunately and gratefully was able to include in my book. I suggest that I include the pertinent translated section from the article (which shows the family relationship betweem Kanishka and Kujula Kadphises, including a reference to his father, grandfather and Kujulu, who was his great grandfather.

I believe Professor Sims-Williams was planning to do further research on the inscription and may well come out (or have already come out) with a revised edition (and others have worked on it too - notably Fussman anmd Mukherjee). However, this is the most up-to-date version I have to hand and so thought I should include the relevant sentence here onm the article - being aware there may be changes in the future, at which point it may be changed. Please feel free to update it if a changed version appears. The inscription is notably unclear and difficult to interpret with full confidence in places. Hope this is OK with everyone. Sincerely, John Hill (talk) 15:06, 5 December 2010 (UTC)