Schøyen Copper Scroll

Talagan / Talaqan, Afghanistan · 492/93 CE (Laukika era) · Brahmi · Schøyen Collection

The Schøyen Copper Scroll is the single most important document for the dynastic geography of the late-fifth-century Alkhan empire. Engraved in Brahmi on a copper sheet at Talagan (modern Talaqan in northern Afghanistan), the scroll records a coalition of contemporary Alkhan kings consecrating a Buddhist stupa relic. The text was edited by Gudrun Melzer and Hans T. Bakker in Hunnic Peoples in Central and South Asia (Barkhuis, 2020).

Who is named

• Talaganika-Devaputra-Sahi — the local king of Talagan
• Sarada-Sahi
• Khingila
• Toramana
• Sasa
• Sahi Mehama
• Sadavıkha
• King Javukha (Zabokho)

Why it matters

Before the Schøyen Scroll’s publication, the relationships between the Alkhan kings named on coins were largely conjectural. The scroll places eight named rulers in a single ritual coalition in 492/93 CE, fixing the dynastic geography in a way no previous source had managed. It also documents the dynasty’s Buddhist patronage at the highest level — the kings consecrating a stupa relic together — which complicates the older European reading of the Alkhans as Buddhist destroyers. See Hephthalites & Alkhans for the wider argument.

Sources

• Melzer & Bakker, in Hunnic Peoples in Central and South Asia (Bakker ed., Barkhuis, 2020)
• Sims-Williams, Bactrian Personal Names (2010)
• Vondrovec, Coinage of the Iranian Huns (2014)