Help wanted with Abbasid dirham [Resolvido]

Hello,

Yesterday I've bought this near perfect dirham:

But it was simply labeled “Abbasid / AR Dirham / 25 mm / 2,68g”.

So, I want to identify date and mint to properly enter it at my Numista collection.

The coin appear to have 100% of the letterings readable, so I think that there won't be a problem at reading it. It just requires someone that can read it.

This one at Zeno looks to be a 100% match to mine (https://www.zeno.ru/showphoto.php?photo=364158), but better check with the experts.

I've temporarily put it at N#160442 , but I'm not 100% sure if it's the right page, since in Numista it have anonymous at title and in Zeno it have Al-Mansur at title.

Está certo

A sua é essa do Numista

Ano 150 (سنة خمسين و مئة das 5h a 1h) é Madinat al-Salam (De acordo com o checklist of islamic coins, após 148 todas são)

é anônimo porque o califa abássida (Al Mansur) era citado em moedas de todos, mesmo de outras dinastias e em alguns casos até pelos inimigos, porque era reconhecido como autoridade, entao esse nao nomeia o governante local

o Checklist tb diz que é anonimo (Stephen Album 213.1)

Ao menos é meu entendimento

Eu sabia que você era a pessoa certa pra isso. Valeu!

I knew you were the right person for this. Thanks!

Hello there,

I agree with most of Geison's readings, but I believe he missed a digit (that of the units) in the date:

• yellow: “in the year” (this is quite crammed but that's where it's supposed to be)
• red: probably “2” (because of the initial “hamza” it could also be “4” but it just doesn't fit; also, ends with “n” as in “2”)
• turquoise: “and”
• green: “50”
• purple: “and”
• orange: “100”

And for those interested, here's the location of the mint on the coin, just before the date:

• red: “in” or “at”; this is actually connected with the next part
• fushia: “Madinat” (= City)
• turquoise: “al-Salam” (= of Peace)

Desculpa, mas só pra conferir, mas é ano cento e cinquenta e quanto? O último dígito é zero mesmo?

Não que eu duvide de você mas vi umas fotos idênticas com data 152, inclusive uma na página do catálogo do Numista, nos exemplos no fim da página.

Yes, almost certainly 152. I think we “cross-posted”.

I'd like to see a link to the other coins you found just to compare. Obrigado.

It's right at the Numista entry of the dirham: N#160442 .

In the end after the year lines, the third of the three examples added by Grinya, it's identical to mine.

That's why I started thinking “wait a sec, it's one hundred and fifty and what?”. And ended typing this at the same time you were making the photo edits.

And thank you Camerinus.

Ah, ok! And yes, the “2” part of the legend is exactly as on your coin. To me, there seems to be an extra “peak” but maybe there's a writing convention I don't know.

Compare the legend in the top coin (158) and yours (152):

بسم الله ضرب هذا الدرهم بمدينة السلام سنة ثمان و خمسين و مئة

بسم الله ضرب هذا الدرهم بمدينة السلام سنة اثنين و خمسين و مئة

The word “year” is underlined; the “8” and “2” are in bold.

Thank you Camerinvs for such great explanation.

As a non-arabic speaker my initial translation was incorrect (Kufic script is quite challenging for me). your explanation was an excellent lesson in coin identification.

Well, you had almost all of it right! You just skipped over the unit in the date. It's good that this thread is now linked on the catalogue page, so that others in the future will be able to use the info to ID their own coins.

I did three years of Arabic at the university level plus a summer course in Tunis. I forgot most of it now but still like to practice Arabic calligraphy.

Oh wow, a three year Arabic course. Certainly it was challenging to keep up with it. It would be for me.

As for the coin itself, it could be worse. There were other two available, but I picked the better looking one instead of the cheaper one. This one looks near perfect, so it really got my attention despite being a little more expensive.

Geison, it wasn't a goal but you hit the goalpost. If reading kufic is hard for you that have experience with it, imagine for me that basically can understand only the numbers.

And Camerinus, your explanation was simply impeccable.

Thanks both of you.

One last bit of info for the records:

There are 26 specimens of this dirham on Zeno that have the same mint and date combination (Madinat al-Salam - AH 152) - http://search.zeno.ru/index.php?v=0&ar=on&c=12894&t=&k=&d=&wmin=&wmax=&smin=&smax=&m=&ymin=152&ymax=152&y=&u=&n=&a=&e=&f=0&s=0

From a total of 241 dirhams from Madinat al-Salam listed - https://www.zeno.ru/showgallery.php?cat=12894