Sear 1901 (with Mardin c/m 18b)

Host coin: anonymous Class K Follis, weight 5.23g, diameter 24mm. On the reverse, Mardin countermark type 18b. The reading of this countermark type is uncertain: perhaps the common religious formula lillah (‘for Allah’) but with a defective final letter. About half the known specimens are mirror images of the other half (hence, divided into a and b subtypes). Lowick assigned it, on the basis of its association with other countermarks, to the Artuqid mint of Hisn Kafya. He did not identify the type with a particular ruler, but it never appears overstamped by another countermark, so it is most likely to belong to the later period of countermarking, after 1160 CE.