Eagle owl (Uki) 1 oz

The eagle owl Үкі was revered by the nomads as a sacred bird and served as a totem symbolising wisdom. This is bound up with its magical ability to guard people from evil spirits and to grant unique sacred knowledge. The second coin of the series appeared on 2 October 2019: the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan released the Үкі in silver with face values of 5,000 and 500 tenge and in cupronickel with face values of 200 and 100 tenge. As in the other issues of the series, the silver coins carry a diamond insert and part of the design is gilded.

The pictorial side is built around the head of the eagle owl: large round eyes, broad brows and the characteristic profile of a night bird are recognised at once, and the diamond is set in the eye — where the owl's gaze, the very thing that defines it, is concentrated in life as well. The naturalistic head is joined to a stencilled part picked out with gilding: a portion of the plumage is turned into a regular pattern, and before the eye the bird passes from living nature into a sign. Above the image stands the inscription "ҮКІ". A wide border with decorative elements runs around it: its rhythmic ornament closes the composition into a circle, and the coin reads as a medallion in which the image has neither top nor bottom in the usual sense — it obeys the circumference.

Totems in primitive beliefs are animals that served as the object of the cult of a clan or tribe and were regarded as its forebears or guardians. According to historians, some Turkic leaders traced their descent to legendary ancestors born of a totem animal — in this way a clan legend turned a beast or a bird into the first ancestor of a whole people. For a nomad such kinship was not an abstract metaphor but a way of explaining where the clan came from and who answers for it before the sky: the totem is at once a relative and a protector. That is why the image of a totem animal on a coin is not decoration but a sign of protection, which the steppe tradition read without any explanation.

What all the coins of the series share is the union of a naturalistic and a stencilled view of the animal with an allegorical treatment in the Saka animal style: one part is shown as the animal, the other as a gilded mask with an element of mysticism. The illustrator is S. S. Maltsev. In the Saka tradition the figure of a beast is reduced to a sign: what matters is not fur or anatomy but silhouette, rhythm and repetition, so the naturalistic and the sign-like parts on one side read as two views of a single being — the living and the sacred.

The вторая coin of the series appeared on 2 October 2019; this card covers the 925 sterling silver, proof quality.

The coins are struck at the Kazakhstan Mint and issued in several versions: silver coins in a souvenir pack with a numbered certificate of quality of the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the state, Russian and English languages, cupronickel coins of proof-like quality in a souvenir pack, and cupronickel coins of brilliant uncirculated quality in special printed packaging. All the coins must be accepted at their face value throughout the Republic of Kazakhstan for all types of payments, as well as for crediting to bank accounts and for transfer, change and exchange in all banks of the country.

Obverse

A composition of a naturalistic and a stencilled image of an eagle owl with a diamond insert; the inscription "ҮКІ" is placed at the top. A wide border with decorative elements runs around the perimeter.

Reverse

Within a frame of national ornament — the year of minting, the denomination and the trademark of the Kazakhstan Mint; the silver coins also carry an inscription naming the metal, its purity and weight. Around the rim runs the legend "QAZAQSTAN RESPÝBLIKASY • REPUBLIC OF KAZAKHSTAN", uniting the Kazakh and the English name of the country.