Attribution of the Nameless Coins of the Archer Type

This paper seeks to reattribute the so-called 'Nameless' coins of the Archer type, hitherto assumed to be Gupta issues, to the Huns. These do not give the ruler's name on the obverse as do almost all other Archer type coins. At present, they are most plausibly attributed to the Gupta king Budhagupta, on account of their use of the epithet śrī vikrama on the reverse, an epithet used also by Budhagupta. The reattribution is inspired by the discovery of a Nameless coin that bears the epithet śrī prakāśa, the epithet used by the Hun king Toramāṇa on his Horseman Lion-slayer coins. The paper shows that the Nameless coins, including the śrī prakāśa coin, share strong stylistic similarities with one another which differentiates them from attributable Gupta coins. Thus a strong case can be made that all the Nameless coins are Hun issues.