The Greek deity Athena, reverse side of a coin issued by the Indo-Greek king Menander I

Coins

Greek inscriptions, royal portraits, and images of Greek deities such as Athena were standard features on coins issued by the Indo-Greek rulers of Central Asia and northern Afghanistan during the centuries just before the Common Era. Many Indo-Greek coins bore translations of the Greek into a local script and language on their reverse sides, indicating the great cultural diversity in this area of the ancient world.

The combination on coins of royal portraiture and divine imagery—a powerful statement of divinely sanctioned rule— was used for many centuries in Central and South Asia, as others of these coins show.