Dear
Forum Friends,
So far I was not able to identify the following coin:
Diameter: 18mm
Weight: 1.42
The famous Lion/Sun
Face depiction, first used by Kay Khusraw II.,
had been copied many times during the next centuries. You have Artuqids, Ağ Qoyunlu or the Ilkhans, who used this depiction on their bronze coins. But most of those pieces are of a distinctively different
style.
Our coin however is stylistically much closer to the Lion/Sun
Face types struck by Kay Khusraw II. The
style of the
obverse seems to resemble very
rare half-dirhams from
his reign. Also the
weight is the correct one for this
denomination, but it is not in
Broome or in
Izmirlier and the
reverse is different.
The
legend in five lines within a double line six-pointed
star reverse is known from coins of the Artuqids from Mardin from around the same period, respectively a few years earlier.
Broome notes that the lion/sun
face type 'ran only from 638 - 641 AH'. Maybe our coin was minted soon after AH 639, when Kay Khusraw II attacked the Ayyubids in south-east
Anatolia and captured the important city of Amid?
I would be very happy to hear your thoughts about this coin. Maybe I am on the wrong track with my thoughts.
Thank you!
Best,
Papinian