Hi Levon
Sorry for my ignorance. Like I said I am no expert on this
field, but consulting my
Balog I saw that these coins are not imitations but rather
Armenian Trams
overstruck. This is what
Balog says:
"Around the middle of the nineteenth Century, numismatists noticed the existance of
Armenian silver-coins,
overstruck with an Arabic
legend. [...] ...they were already correctly attributed to al-Nasir Muhammad. In 714-715AH al-Nasir Muhammad attacked and invaded Cicilia, a second invasion followed in 716AH. "
Then in 721AH the
Armenian endured an attack by the Mongols but right after it was attacked by the Mamluks again and in 722AH and 723AH
Sis fell to the Mamluks, they plundered the treasury of Leon IV and an annual tribute of 1.2 Million Trams was imposed.
So
Balog presents couple of coins in
his book under number 213
AR Tram of Oshin
AR Tram of Levon IV
AR Tram (kings name is illegible)
(
Balog P. (1964), The Coinage of the Mamluk Sultans of
Egypt and
Syria, The
American Numismatic Society,
New York, page 146)
So this was the Mamluks. Whats more interesting if of course the coins minted by the Umayyad Empire. Like
Arab-Byzantine there are also Arab-Armenian coins.
Stephen
Album in
his check list does mention them. There are 2 extremly
rare pieces.
#E97
In the name of Muhammad (unidentified), AR zuzun
He says: With Arabic muhammad before
bust, waf in margin. The
denomination zwzwn (Aramaic for
Drachm) appears on the
reverse where the
mint signature is normally placed, and has been miscontrued as Zouzan, a locality in Khorasan. Nikitin believes that the
type dates to circa 80AH.
#F97
AR zuzun, similar but Pahlavi MHMT before
bust, Arabic muhammad in margin.
These are series of early
Islamic coins
types struck by the
standard of the
Sassanian Empire. Some coins have the word
ARM and ARMAN which is referrig to
Armenia, consistent with known find posts.
(
Album S. (1998), A Checklist of
Islamic Coins, Stephen
Album, Santa Rosa, page 19)
Looking at
Ottoman Coins minted in Yerevan (Modern
Armenia) we can see this
In Turkish Yerevan is Revan, and on
Ottoman coins is was written as Rwan
These are the coins minted there
982AH Murad III Dirhem
1003AH Mehmet III Sahi
1115AH Ahmet III, Esrefi, Abasi, Sahi
I
hope this will
help you further. This was real hard
workBest wishes,
Burak