Amazing old crusader sword

Discussion in 'Ancient Coins' started by cmezner, Oct 18, 2021.

  1. cmezner

    cmezner do ut des Supporter

    That must be one kind of a sword:

     
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  3. Mat

    Mat Ancient Coincoholic

    I read about this earlier today. Pretty cool.
     
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  4. cmezner

    cmezner do ut des Supporter

    Hopefully someone can share a crusader coin? I don't have one yet - it is on my wish list:D
     
  5. Here is one. Bohemond III; Antioch, ca. 1163-1201; silver.

    64A48E40-C0EB-4AFD-989D-6FA89ECC93B1.jpeg
     
  6. Orielensis

    Orielensis Well-Known Member

    Very interesting video! I'd love to see what hides beneath the encrustations.

    Some crusader coins:
    MA – Kreuzfahrer, Jerusalem, Baldwin III denier (neues Foto).png
    Kingdom of Jerusalem, Baldwin III, BI Denier, 1142–1163 AD, Jerusalem mint. Obv: BALDVINVS REX; cross pattée. Rev: + DE IERVSALEM; Tower of David. 16mm, 0.97g. Ref: CCS 21.

    MA – Kreuzfahrer, Tancred, follis.png
    Principality of Antioch, Tancred, AE follis, 1104–1112 AD. Obv: [KE BO TANKR or similar; as usual not struck]; bust of Tancred, bearded, wearing 'turban,' holding raised sword in r. hand. Rev: Cross as the Tree of Life; in quadrants, IC-XC / NI-KA. 22 mm, 2.45g. Ref: Schlumberger II.7, Metcalf 63-70, CCS 4a. Overstruck on Schlumberger II.6; Metcalf 49-62.

    MA – Kreuzfahrer, Antioch, Bohemond III.png
    Principality of Antioch, Bohemond III, BI denier, 1163–1201 AD. Obv: +BOANVIHDVS (slightly blundered for BOAMUNDVS); helmeted head left in chain mail, flanked by crescent and star. Revers: + AHTIOCHIA (slightly blundered for ANTIOCHIA); cross pattée with crescent in upper right angle. 17.5mm, 0,88g. Ref: CCS, 65/66.

    MA – Kreuzfahrer, Edessa, Baldwin II.png
    County of Edessa, Baldwin of Bourcq, AE Follis, 1110–1118 AD. Obv: Baldwin in conical helmet and chain-armor, standing l., sheathed sword at hip, holding globus cruciger, BA[Λ] - ΔOI[N] around. Rev: Ornamented cross in Byzantine style. 20mm, 4.01g. Ref: Schlumberger I,9; Metcalf 109–112; CCS 10.
     
  7. cmezner

    cmezner do ut des Supporter

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  8. +VGO.DVCKS

    +VGO.DVCKS Well-Known Member

    @cmezner, you're in luck; they're Really thick on the ground at this point, frequently with prices to match, from Vcoins to Ebay to auctions on, for instance, Biddr.

    Besides how iconic the coins are, the earliest and commonest ones are of Bohemond III, whose majority as prince of Antioch (1163-1201) goes all the way from the high tide of the Frankish kingdom of Jerusalem during the reign of Amaury (1163-1174 ...receding from Baldwin III? maybe just a little), to the fall of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade (Richard, and so forth), c. 1187-1191, to the dawn of the no less fascinating earlier 13th century. With appropriate relaxation about the sheer scope of the chronology, you get a Lot of historical bang for your buck.
    Here are a couple later examples, posted recently.
    COINS, CRUSADES, ANTIOCH, AE with FLEUR, OBV..JPG
    COINS, CRUSADES, ANTIOCH, AE with FLEUR, REV..JPG
    Frankish Antioch, Bohemond IV, "ca. 1210-1216 or later" (Malloy). AE pougeoise. (...Very fractional denier; the 12th-c. kings of Jerusalem were issuing AR oboles, or half deniers. --Right, for ancients folk, this shows you how anachronistic, and correspondingly fragmentary the denominational legacy of Classical times was, at this interval. People could read and even write Latin --yep, in Western Europe, even Greek, sometimes-- but usually badly.)
    Obv. Fleur-de-lis, wedges in upper angles; "+BOHMVNDVS"
    Rev. Cross; "+ANTIOCHIA". (Malloy (1994), Antioch #62.)
    ANTIOCH, BOAMUND (IV-) V, CLASS O, CCS 126.jpg

    Bohemond V (possibly late IV), 1233-1252. (Bohemond IV being 1201 to --you get points if you guessed this already-- 1233. Naturally, if you knew that already, all you get is a chance for the t-shirt or the coffee cup.) Malloy (1994), 126.

    ...Evoking a related discovery, which was in academic news over the last couple of weeks. This was supposed to be a separate OP, but life intervened. Starting from the draft.
    Found this the other day. The article links to one in a journal, for anyone who wanted to pursue it further. But, Promise, the source here has its own academic credentials.
    https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/the-brutality-of-the-crusades/?mqsc=E4137619&dk=ZE13O0ZF0&utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=BHDA Daily Newsletter&utm_campaign=10_11_21_The_Brutality_of_the_Crusades_sponsored

    A couple of things jump out at me. First, from this single, apparently intact mass grave (even if some of the skeletons were not), some of the bones were carbon-dated to the mid-13th century. As the article notes, this corresponds to two attacks on Frankish Sidon, by the Mamluks in 1253 and the Mongols in 1260. The former was led by none other than the future Mamluk sultan of Egypt, Baybars, during the so-called 7th Crusade of Louis IX /St. Louis. Baybars went on to decisively repel the Mongol invasion of 1260; proceeding to capture Antioch in 1268, and to attempt the assassination of the future Edward I during his crusade of 1270.
    But back to Louis' crusade, Baybars also played a prominent role in the Battle of Mansourah in 1250, which Joinville's memoir describes in vivid detail. Wish your edition /abridged translation was better than my two of the latter; but it underscores the level of violence that 13th-century warfare got up to. ...The one redeeming feature is that, of necessity, it took place on a relatively small scale, by comparison to either the Classical or modern periods.

    Here's my only dirham of Baybars, with the needed heraldic tiger or panther in the lower obverse field. (There's a recentish thread here, with some very well-informed commentary on this very subject.)
    baybars.jpg
    Baybars, Mamluk Sultan of Egypt 658-676 AH, 1260-1277 CE. Album 2nd ed., 1998, 883.

    ...The other thing from the article on this mass grave that made me sit up is that DNA tests on the skeletons concluded that the soldiers, apparently consisting mainly of professional infantry, were variously of Frankish, Arab and Franco-Arab descent. This is fun, as an indication of the degree to which the mixed Arab population (witness the Vietnam War, for precedent in reverse) were integrated into Frankish society. Contemporary precedent for this abounds, at least in the broader, cultural sphere: in Iberia, during the earlier phases of the Reconquista, Muslims and Jews were prominent in the administration of newly conquered cities, while in Norman Sicily, princes were educated by Muslim tutors. You can begin to smell a time which was effectively prior to the invention of racism in any modern, ideological sense of the term. ...In order to get pseudo-science, you need scientific vocabulary to mess with. In the absence of that, well, it kind of didn't happen. ...More along the lines of, 'I'm vanilla, you're chocolate (or coffee). ...Well, Wait a minute, I Like chocolate!'

    ...Well, Sure, why not, here are my two deniers of Baldwin III, not posted for a minute or two.
    COINS, CRUSADES, BALDWIN III, DENIER.jpg
    COINS, CRUSADES, BALDWIN III, OBV.JPG
    COINS, CRUSADES, BALDWIN III, REV.JPG
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2021
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  9. cmezner

    cmezner do ut des Supporter

    @+VGO.DVCKS thank you for all the knowledge and information you are sharing.

    I didn’t know much about the Crusades; by chance, I just read a book by Thomas Madden "A concise History of the Crusades" that sparked my interest.
    The Crusades did have a long-term impact that we might not realize; definitely an impressive task that they undertook...

    Will be looking for a Crusader denier, one with that fantastic helmet
     
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  10. +VGO.DVCKS

    +VGO.DVCKS Well-Known Member

    Many thanks, @cmezner, and best of luck!!!
    My personal favorite overview of the period --kind of Francocentric-- is Jean Richard, The Crusades (in translation, Promise). But, at risk of wallowing in the obvious, there's Lots of good stuff out there.
     
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  11. cmezner

    cmezner do ut des Supporter

    Though these derniers are the most common type of crusader coins, I just had to have one:D
    Attribution and picture are courtesy of Marc Breitsprecher:

    Bohemond III
    Billion denier, Principality of Antioch, AD 1163-1201
    17.43 mm, 1.09 g
    Ref.: CCS 68a Class D Antioch mint

    Ob.: ✠BOAMVNDVS, helmet emblazoned with a cross, prominent nasal-guard and mail coif (hood) covering the neck, to left; crescent and star in fields
    Rev.: ANTIOCHIIA, cross pattée, downward pointing crescent in 2nd quarter

    Crusaders Dernier-Bohemond III.jpeg
     
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  12. cmezner

    cmezner do ut des Supporter

  13. +VGO.DVCKS

    +VGO.DVCKS Well-Known Member

    Many thanks for the link, @cmezner. Downloaded the article to the thumb drive with half my life on it.
     
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  14. john65999

    john65999 Well-Known Member

    would love to see it when restored..
     
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  15. +VGO.DVCKS

    +VGO.DVCKS Well-Known Member

    Here's something fun, which I probably posted before:
    https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/27619
    Pierre Mauclerc, whose coat of arms triangulates perfectly with the pommel, provenance and attendant chronology (none of his immediate family went on crusade), participated both in the 'Barons' Crusade,' c. 1239-1241, and the first one of Louis IX, c. 1248-1253. Since the 'Barons' Crusade' was consistently directed at Palestine, while Pierre was wounded in Egypt during the initial phase of Louis' subsequent one (dying at sea on the way home), it's an easy guess that the sword pommel is from his adventures on the prior one of the two.
     
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