Fire altar page

[moonmoth]

Greetings!

I have just completed a simple page about coins showing fire altars.  But I am no historian.  I would be grateful if anyone reading it could point out if I have made any mistakes! 

Thanks.

https://www.forumancientcoins.com/moonmoth/firealtar_coins.html

Bill Welch

[AlexB]

Hi Bill

Interesting site. Did you know about the earlier fire altar coins as per here?:

http://www.coinarchives.com/a/lotviewer.php?LotID=139344&AucID=166&Lot=6333&Match=1

Brgds

Alex

[moonmoth]

Hi, Alex.

No, I didn't realise these earlier Persis coins were so different.

These would be from Persis during the Seleucid period.  I will mention them on my page.  Thanks for drawing them to my attention.

Bill

[AlexB]

Bill

Glad I could help. There are different examples to those shown - you should do a search on coin archives and maybe 'sold coins' at CNG.

Brgds

Alex

[Istinpolin]

Thats a wonderful website you have there.

Nezak Huns are today considered to be Eastern Turks.

I have recently acquired a lot of those with wonderful green patina. If you are interested in them you can upload them to your website.

Best wishes,
Burak

[moonmoth]

Thats a wonderful website you have there.

Nezak Huns are today considered to be Eastern Turks.

I have recently acquired a lot of those with wonderful green patina. If you are interested in them you can upload them to your website.

Best wishes,
Burak

Thanks, I'm glad you like it.  I am still very tentative about some of the history on the fire altar page, so any clues are appreciated.  There are many different explanations of the Nezaks and the Hephthalites on the web.

As you probably saw, I recently bought a couple of coins claimed to be from the Kashmir Smast, and that seems to be the strangest of all.  A cave kingdom big enough to strike its own coins, that lasted 400 years?  It sounds too romantic to be true.

Thanks for the offer of images, those are lovely coins and I'm glad to have seen them, but I am trying to make my web site by showing coins I have collected.  That's half the fun!  (The only exceptions are a couple of rare coins on the "story of Medusa" page, and I rather regret those now.  I am looking out for examples I can collect to replace those images.)  For the fire altar page, I am looking for single examples of a range of types.  I have a few more to add soon.

Bill

[Robert_Brenchley]

I like that page but can't comment on the history.

[mernumis]

To my knowledge the fire altars are common religious practices of the pre Islam Persia and the east... what is more interesting in your site that i found was the "Bronze fals of Bukhara,
766 CE" the Abbasid coin. Since Abbasid accepted Islam as their religion at the time. I guess the fire altars were still a done practise... Very puzzled indeed. Frank.

[moonmoth]

To my knowledge the fire altars are common religious practices of the pre Islam Persia and the east... what is more interesting in your site that i found was the "Bronze fals of Bukhara,
766 CE" the Abbasid coin. Since Abbasid accepted Islam as their religion at the time. I guess the fire altars were still a done practise... Very puzzled indeed. Frank.

The history of Zoroastrianism, which uses the fire altar as an important symbol, is summarised on my page.

That fals has a fire altar as a "tamgha" of some sort, apparently as a signifier of the origin of the coin, probably without any religious significance.  It would have been part of the cultural history of the area, just as Iranians today recall the great empires of their past.

Of course the Abbasid Caliphate was Muslim, the second great Sunni dynasty out of Baghdad.  The Umayyads conquered Persia, and the Abbasids followed.  But the Abbasid governors of Tabaristan used fire altars on their coinage, and with one exception also used the image of the ruler, neither of which would accord with normal Muslim practice as we think of it today.  So they went along with the local cultural ideas as far as the coinage was concerned.  A fire altar on a coin from anywhere near Persia would be quite believable.

Bill

[Howard Cole]

That fals has a fire altar as a "tamgha" of some sort, apparently as a signifier of the origin of the coin, probably without any religious significance.  It would have been part of the cultural history of the area, just as Iranians today recall the great empires of their past.

Of course the Abbasid Caliphate was Muslim, the second great Sunni dynasty out of Baghdad.  The Umayyads conquered Persia, and the Abbasids followed.  But the Abbasid governors of Tabaristan used fire altars on their coinage, and with one exception also used the image of the ruler, neither of which would accord with normal Muslim practice as we think of it today.  So they went along with the local cultural ideas as far as the coinage was concerned.  A fire altar on a coin from anywhere near Persia would be quite believable.

Bill

Bill, the coins of Tabaristan do not show the current ruler on the coins of the Abbasid governors.  The image is of Khurso II, a Sasanian king.  As to having images of people on Islamic coins, it is a lot more common then most people would assume.  I have over 30 Islamic figural bronze coins and 3 or 4 Islamic coins that show a bust or a rider on them.

[canadian_boy]

Bill - very good site. I've bookmarked it and have already used it for a quick reference. Thanks.

[moonmoth]

Bill, the coins of Tabaristan do not show the current ruler on the coins of the Abbasid governors.  The image is of Khurso II, a Sasanian king.  As to having images of people on Islamic coins, it is a lot more common then most people would assume.  I have over 30 Islamic figural bronze coins and 3 or 4 Islamic coins that show a bust or a rider on them.

That would have to be right, seeing as the figure is wearing Khushro II's crown.    Though given how stylised the art is, identifying an individual wouldn't be easy, if he were sneakily wearing someone else's crown.  Anyway, we can still say that it is the image of _a_ ruler, even if not the current governor or Tabaristan. 

I have seen other islamic coins with images of people too, though clearly much fewer than you.  Are any of them recent?   

Bill

[moonmoth]

Bill - very good site. I've bookmarked it and have already used it for a quick reference. Thanks.

Thanks.  I'm glad you found it interesting.  I would like to acknowledge the help I have had since I started this thread, especially from Howard Cole and Alan Humphries.

I still have some doubts about the attribution and dating of some of the later Indian drachms!

[Howard Cole]

I have seen other islamic coins with images of people too, though clearly much fewer than you.  Are any of them recent?   

Bill

All of the figural bronze and silver coins I have been collecting are in the 12th Century or earlier.  There are later ones too, but I have not been actively collecting them.  I just got the reference book for Mamluk coins and I am surprised by how many of their bronze coins have images on them.  Oh well, a new area to explore.