Download PDF | C.Foss, Arab Byzantine Coins-An Introduction, with a Catalogue of the DO-Coll (2008).
204 Pages
CLIVE FOSS isa specialist on the historical geography and archaeology of the lace Roman and Byzantine empire, with books to his credit on the Anatolian cities of Sardis, Ephesus, Nicomedia, and Nicaea, as well as studies on fortifications and Roman numismatics. He is presently researching a major work on the transitional period in Syria after the Arab conquest of this Byzantine land in the 630s. Currently a Visiting Professor at Georgetown University, he specializes in late Roman and Byzantine history, and the history of dictatorship.
INTRODUCTION
‘This volume aims to present “Arab—Byzantine” coinage in its numismatic and historical context. It includes a catalogue of such coins in the Dumbarton Oaks collection, most of them acquired from a private collector in 2000, together with specimens previously in the collection and a few that have been added subsequently. The idea of producing it was inspired by the Seventh Arab-Byzantine Forum, held at Dumbarton Oaks in 1999.
Although the collection is not large, it is representative of a complex coinage produced in a period of transition, which saw the Umayyad caliphate replace the late Roman (or Byzantine) Empire as the dominant power in the Near East. The Arab-Byzantine coins are notable for the use of images, some taken or derived from the Byzantine coinage, others original co the new Islamic regime. ‘Their inscriptions are in Greek, Arabic, or both; they represent an unfamiliar mélange of the Christian and Islamic, but were all produced under a state run by Arabs and professing the religion of the prophet Muhammad.
They exist in a large and confusing variety and pose considerable problems, many of them awaiting solution. To understand them becter, the coins will be presented here in the broad context of numismatics and the history of seventh-century Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. The discussion will encompass the entire seventh century, beginning with the last Byzantine issues of the region and concluding with the new Islamic coinage from which images were completely banished. Arab-Byzantine coins are complicated and generally not well known.
They begin with types that imitate the Byzantine and include many that have no indication of a mint; none of them bears a precise date. The series poses major problems: who issued them and where? When and why were they struck? Such questions have been under serious investigation only for the last fifty years; this is a new field, compared with Classical or Islamic numismatics.
These coins long tended to fall into a limbo between the Byzantine and the Islamic, especially because most of them are small, unattractive, badly struck, and difficult to understand. Asa result, relatively few have been included in major collections, and then often grouped under a category like “barbarous imitations.”
Serious study of Arab—Byzantine coins began with the British Muscum catalogue of John Walker published in 1956. He listed around 200 coins, classifying them according to the Byzantine prototype from which their types were derived. Although this method is not now considered appropriate, Walker at least made many varieties available for serious study.
Michael Bates of the American Numismatic Society pat the field on a scientific basis in 1976 by subjecting one series, the issues of Damascus, to a close analysis (further developed in his studies of 1986 and 1989; publication details for all works mentioned here will be found in the bibliography). He concluded thar the great majority of Arab—Byzantine types were issued in a relatively short time at the end of the seventh century. Bates’s work stirred much discussion, but its chronological conclusions find little following today.
In 1985, the Israeli numismatist Shraga Qedar published an influential article that proposed a new classification based on type and mint, and suggested that the coins were produced over a long period, from the Arab conquest of 640 down to the reform of the coinage at the end of the senth century. Cécile Morrisson of the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris summarized the state of the question in 1992, independently reaching conclusions similar to Qedars. Meanwhile, Tony Goodwin had begun his pathbreaking work that focused ona series whose difficulty and general lack of appeal had kept it from being studied—the types that imitate the Byzantine coinage of Constans II (642-668).
In a series of articles (notably 1993a), he identified and classified different types and put the study of this important coinage on a new basis. His work includes the second catalogue that embraces the entire series, published in 2002 in the sylloge of the Ashmolean Muscum, Oxford (S/CA, reviewed in Foss 2003a). This not only provides careful description and full illustration of 227 coins bur discusses all the problems associated with them in a comprehensive introduction. Equally valuable is his 2005 catalogue of the Khalili | collection Arab—Byzantine Coins, which presents a clear survey of known types and detailed analysis of specific mints. Goodwin is one of several English numismatiss whose work on these coins is ensuring rapid progress. Among them, the prolific An- drew Oddy has produced a survey of the whole series with a comprehensive bibliog phy, an essential work of reference (Oddy 2004b).
Eyer since the catalogue of Walker, these coins have been called “Arab—Byzantine. meaning coins struck by Arabs and employing Byzantine types; the parallel coin: | age of Iraq and Iran, which uses Persian images, is correspondingly known as “Amd~ Sassanian.” Strictly speaking, the coinage discussed here was struck by or under Mev lim authorities (not quite the same as Arabs, since some of them were Christians, while others never left the Arabian peninsula), All the coins employ images—unlike the later, more characteristically “Islamic” issues—but those of the last series are not Byzantine at all, except insofar as they portray the standing figure of a ruler, It might be more accurate to call this whole series “transitional coinage of Syria and Egypt under early Islamic rule? “Byzantine~Muslim tansitional coinage,’ or something similar, but the term “Arab—Byzantine” is convenient and rooted in the literature. It will be used here to designate the entire coinage of greater Syria (including Palestine and Transjordan—the Arabic bilad al-Sham) and Egypt from the Muslim conquest of the 640s until the abolition of images at the end of the seventh century.
The Arab-Byzantine coinage falls into a few clear divisions: coins that imitate Byzantine prototypes more or less carefully; types that have mintmarks and inseriptions in Greek and/or Arabic, bur still feature the image of an emperor; and those that show an Arab figure, with or without the name of the caliph, and inscriptions in Arabic.
These are here called “Imitative coins” (those that follow the originals closely, or try to), “Derivative” (those that develop new types or significant variations, but still use the standing figure on the obverse and the large denominational sign M on the reverse); “Bilingual” types (those that introduce mintmarks and are inscribed in Greek, Arabic, or both); and “Standing Caliph” coins (Arabic inscriptions only). The first two categories together are commonly called “Pseudo-Byzantine, while an alternative terminology employs the rather cumbersome and ambiguous “Umayyad Imperial Image” for the Bilingual coins. “Proto-Umayyad” is also used to describe this series,
The most difficult problem posed by these coins has been the lack of fixed points, chronological or geographical. Between the Arab conquest completed in the 640s and the reign of Abd al-Malik (685-705), there is no coin thar offers clear internal evidence for dating, and except for the Bilingual and Standing Caliph coinage, none bears a mintmark. In other words, all the Imitative and Derivative coins are floating in time and space, while the Bilingual issues, though associated with known mints, are nor securely dated.
Consequently, for many of these coins the minting authority is unknown, and for even more the reasons and circumstances of their production is not clear. All this is now changing thanks to the innovative studies of Henri Pottier and his colleagues (2008), a major example of the rapid progress this field is making. Their revolutionary bur convincing ideas will provide a new basis for the study of this coinage.
By examining, weighing, and measuring over two thousand PscudoByzantine coins, they have concluded that the most reliable criterion for dating is their weight, which—at first sight astonishingly—seems to conform to the ever- declining standard of the official Byzantine issues. Since those coins were being imported into Syria in substantial quantities through the 650s, the types char imitated them were struck at the same weight standard.
By these means, Portier and his colleagues have determined that the types imitating the Byzantine issues of Cyprus are the earliest, beginning as soon as most of the region had fallen under Arab control, and produced probably from 638 to 643. They also postulate that the majority of the Imitative and Derivative coins were issued by about 660, with some types continuing until the introduction of the Bilingual coinage around 670. In other words, they support the “long chronology” first advocated by Qedar, maintaining that coinage was constantly being produced in this region through the seventh century. Their chronology. though still being developed, will be followed here, Many problems of classification remain, however, especially because it is not yet possible to determine where, why, or by whom these coins were struck.
The Standing Caliph coins are the least problematic, because most of them bear the name of the caliph Abd al-Malik—they were therefore official issues of an established state—and almost all of them have mintmarks. This series shows a close correspondence between the coinage and the Umayyad administrative system. In Syria, the administration was organized around militarized provinces called junds. There were originally four: Damascus, in southern Syria; Homs in the north; Jordan (al-Urdunn) in the center; and Palestine (Filastin) in the south.
Later sources give enough details of these districts and their capitals and main cities to show that this coinage is organized along the same lines—that is, it reflects an administrative system explicitly attested only a century later (discussed in convincing detail in Bone 2000). Coins and literary sources here form a neat complement. Likewise, the Bilingual series exhibits the same structure, enabling it also to fit into known historical circumstances. These two series, then, lend themselves to easy classification, but the rest leave many questions to be answered.
This volume aims to present the series in the broad perspective of numismatics and history. Ie will survey the entire coinage of seventh-century Syria and Egypt, to show what preceded and influenced these issues, and what finally replaced their complex variety. Therefore the first part includes some strictly Byzantine coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collection, to form part of the background of this series. For the Imitative and Derivative (Pseudo-Byzantine) series, it will discuss types that have been identified and studied whether or not they are represented in the Dumbarton Oaks collection. though without claiming to include every one that has been discovered. The chronel: ogy of Pottier et al.
will be followed wherever possible. This survey will put the coins age into the context of a continuous historical narrative. Presentation of the coins and the history form the first part of the volume, The catalogue that follows describes and illustrates every coin in the Dumbarton Oaks collection, arranging them according to the categories discussed above, with the Egyptian issues following the Syrian, and the reformed coinage without images presented last. Since the material is complicated, the introductory chapters (1-7) on the Syrian coins are followed by a table that gives a synoptic view of the mints and the various types of coins they struck.
During the long time this work has been in production, it has received much help and incurred many obligations. My first thanks are to Shraga Qedar, who introduced me to these coins and stimulated my interest in them. I am especially grateful to Cécile Morrisson, who encouraged and helped the project at every stage.
Michael Metcalf, Tony Goodwin, Alan Walmsley, and two anonymous readers read the manu-script at various stages and offered important improvements. Peter Lampincn donated the coin that appears on 6, while Gabriela Bijovsky, Stefan Heidemann, Brooks Levy, Henri Pottier, and Wolfgang and Ingrid Schulze ared unpublished or inacces sible inform ation and w illingly answered frequent questions. M y sincere than ks to all.
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