a mamlük hoard of hamäh / [george c. miles]
TRANSCRIPT
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8/10/2019 A Mamlk hoard of Hamh / [George C. Miles]
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A
MAMLK
HOARD OF
HAMAH
SE E PLATE XLIX)
InJanuary1962 Mr. J. M. Eisenberg of New York was goodenough
to
permit
me to
examine
alot
of
305
Mamlksilvercoins
which he
had
acquired.1Allthese coins, ofwhich 297 were dirhems and eight ap-
parently half-dirhems, were specimens of asingle issue of the Bahri
Mamlk
sultanal-MansrSayf al-Din Qal n, struck at the Syrian
mint
o f
Hamh
in the
last year
of his
reign
689
H ./I29O
A.D.
As
this
particular issue is hitherto unpublished
2
and the lot appears to
con-
stitute a hoard, a short note on the subject would seem to be in
order.
All
the coins, both the dirhems and the fractions, appear to be
from
the same
pair
of dies. The dirhems rnge in
diameter
from 20 to
23
mm.,
the halves
from 17
to18 mm. The die positions are not fixed.
All the coins are very weakly struck, not worn, s the specimensil-
lustrated,
[68]g,
6 8 [ g ]
and
[689],
P LAT E
XLIX,
1-4,
show.
The
follow-
ingtranscriptions
of the
legends
are
reconstructedfrom
a
comparison
of several
specimens
O bv : Q \
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3
o8 A. N. S. MUSEUM
NOTES
Rev :
^-l
o
O
4-Lyl
Ornamentsbefore p
and
after
Themint
name
is
preserved
on147
specimens.
On no
single speci-
men
is the
complete date preserved,
but
there
are asufficient
number
with
either
thedigitor the
decade
or the
Century,
or two of the
three
figures,
preserved
to
leave
no
doubt whatever about
the
date,even
wherethedigitislacking, particularlysother details showthecoins
to be,
s remarked,
from identical dies.Fivespecimens are double-
struck,reverse
die on
obverse,
and
obverse
die on
reverse.
One
speci-
men is a brockage with retrograde traces of the reverse die on the
reverse
and the
obverse unaffected.
The eight specimens
which
I judge to be half dirhems because of
their reduced dianieters PLATEXLIX,5)rngeinweight from 1.08
grams
to
2.06 grams 1.08,
1.46,
1.75,1.93, 1.94, 1.97,2.06, 2.06).
The
frequencies of the
weights
of the
dirhems, scaled
at
intervals
of
.20
gr.,
are s
follows:
Weight
No of
Specimens
.
1.61-1.80
i ,
1.81-2.00 i
2.0I 2.2O
6
2.2I 2.4O 14
2.4I 2.6O
15
2.6I 2.8O
22
2.8I 3.0O 64
3.01 3.20 76
3 21 3 40
51
3.41 3.60
28
3.61 3.80 10
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MAMLK HOARD
OFHAMH 3 9
Weight No
o/Specimens
3.81-4.00
5
4.01-4.20
2
4-35
4-77
The
peak therefore is at 3.01-3.20grams, somewhat above the
figure given by Balog
(op.cit.,
p. 41) for the
period (2.80-2.90
grams). The large number of specimens in the groups on either side
of
the
peak
64
from2.81-3.00grams,
and
51from3.21-3.40grams)
wouldsuggest
thatatthis
time
the
weight
of
individual dirhems
was
not
controlled nearly s accurately s it was in Umayyad and early
*Abbsid
days.
3
GEORGE C .
M ILES
3 C f.
G. C.M iles,
ByzantineMiliaresion
and
Arab
Dirhem: some
Notes
on
theirRelationship, ANSMN
IX,
1960,
p.
213.
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XLIX
GOLD FORGERIES
OF
TIGR NES
M M L U K
HO RD
OF H MH